Of-Two-Minds / PeakStupidity on constant economic expansion
Posted On: Saturday - February 18th 2017 8:13AM MST
In Topics: Pundits Global Financial Stupidity
A guy named Charles Hugh Smith writes a great blog that goes by the name of "Of Two Minds". Here is the latest post by him on the Financial Stupidity that is going on, in terms of debt. This guy does a great job and his post here, along with (possibly all of his) others is featured on ZeroHedge
Here is just the part of it, but you must read the whole, fairly simple, post of Charles Hugh Smith to get his point (the Bold is from the original):
The politics of the past 70 years was all about horsetrading who got what share of the growing pie: the "pie" being cheap energy, government revenues and consumption, sales and profits.
Horsetrading over a growing pie is basically fun. There's always a little increase left for the losers, so there is a reason for everyone to cooperate in a broad political consensus
.
Horsetrading over a shrinking pie is not fun. Everybody is shrilly demanding their piece of the pie should either grow or be left untouched; any cuts must come out of someone else's slice.
The key point, from us and Mr. Smith, is that over the last 1/2 century, this expansion of "the pie" has been accomplished by borrowing, not actually increasing the real wealth. A big portion of the dough and filling have been borrowed from neighbors, to keep this analogy going, and they will want to get paid back eventually, but the pies are being eaten. (Mr. Smith uses 70 years, but the first part of that was all real creation of wealth).
Now, Mr. Smith didn't make up the three good graphs that appear with this article, but did do a great job picking these ones. I have lifted them to use in more detailed future posts about financial stupidity. His illustration of the debt problem we are in is a much better summary than I have written in the Global Financial Stupidity Topic Key in the series starting here, but especially in this one, regarding future obligations and the interconnectedness of all this debt.
Mr. Smith again:
The debts, unfunded liabilities, demographics and diminishing pools of income to tap are beyond policy tweaks and minor cuts. Take a look at these charts to grasp the unwelcome realities: sorry, we can't "grow our way out of debt" because the debts and unfunded liabilities are simply too large and expanding at too fast a rate.
ZeroHedge commenters also bring this up a lot: Government and Big Business, often almost one-and-the-same anymore have this idea that expansion must go on; this means expansion of revenues, profits, the amount of consumers or the spending power of consumers or both. (Notice I didn't say expansion of employees - they don't seem to care about that.) You will hear this over and over - "a business must grow, or it will die!" To me that one expression is one of those peak-of-stupidity things like "diversity if a strength!" that I wondered the truth of from the first time I heard it uttered. "Why?, Why is diversity a strength?" Why? Why will a business die if it doesn't continually expand". "Why do you spout bullshit and expect everyone to just believe it?" - that's another one.
I have worked for organizations of wide-ranging size from just myself (as I recall, I had the best boss in that job, come to think of it), 2 - 5 people, 10, 15, 200, 5000, and over 70,000 in just one location. In the smaller companies, I never found that I or anyone thought that we were going to be in financial trouble if we didn't keep growing - no such thing at all came to mind. In the bigger ones, who knew WTF was going on with the big shots? They didn't want to talk
Improvement is great and necessary for keeping competitive, but it doesn't have to come from constant expansion; what you do is increase productivity by constantly learning, changing out equipment or methods, and not being too complacent.
The constant push for expansion by Big Governments and Big Business shows either an ignorance or disregard for the limitations of resources of the planet and the quality of life of your average Joe who is not one of the elites in Big Governments and Big Business. This is coming to a head now due to:
a) The absolute population numbers are really getting up there, and the productivity of mechanical and electronic machines is getting so high that there are not so many place for the average Joe in this world.
b) The increases in population are in the regions of the world and in the sector of each population that are the most uneducated and of lower inherent intelligence. The world of the near future will not have a need for these ones due to (a). The big disparity in fertility between the uneducated/ignorant/stupid and the educated/developed/intelligent is mostly an effect of many years of Government policy put into effect by the supposed smart people of yesteryear. Some of the educated/developed/intelligent (the commies, aka "socialists") crowd really didn't have the smarts required to go change the world properly after all.
c) This is in addition to the Financial Stupidity problem - being in the huge debt-hole just makes things much worse. The grandchildren of these commies and the grandchildren of the innocent (of f__king-up the world) will pay the price for this commie-created stupidity fairly soon.
* BTW, don't confuse this guy with Brandon Smith, also featured a lot on ZeroHedge. Brandon Smith has a good website called Alt-Market which features much of the writing on the Global Financial Stupidity that both ZeroHedge and OfTwoMinds also do. My only one-time dealing with Brandon, however, when writing a comment to correct a small error, resulted in him wiping out the comment and figuratively foaming-out-the-mouth about it. I had praised the article and just told the guy that fixing the obvious error (the Confederate Army did not march on Ft. Sumter, seeing as how it's a coupla miles into the Charleston harbor from the battery) would avoid turning off readers only due to their lack of trust in his literacy.
Anyhow, he's a different guy.
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University Bubble 99 - Remedial Global Financial Stupidity at the U
Posted On: Friday - February 17th 2017 8:01AM MST
In Topics: University Global Financial Stupidity
First off readers, this post is a prerequisite for the understanding of University Bubble 101. If you mistakenly read that post before this one, you must:
a) Report to the adviser for Global Financial Stupidity Studies, get a signature, and bring that paperwork over to the registration building to sign back up and pay your fees again (not to worry, it will all get lumped onto your school loans - no hassle for you).
b) You may "test" out of this remedial level course by showing proof to the Dean of the College of Global Financial Stupidity that you have perused and commented on ZeroHedge for the last 3 semesters. You WILL NOT RECEIVE CREDIT for the course, if you have not used the phrase "Gold, bitchez" at least on one occasion. There are NO EXCEPTIONS."
OK, housekeeping aside now, let's start by saying that the University Bubble 101 post was premature. I understand that the reader may wonder how this writer made a simple financial dealing at the local restaurant into a BIG FINANCIAL BUBBLE. Let's give some background in this post then.
The higher education business is different from most big business for a number of reasons. The first is that it is not clear who is the real customer - sure students pay tuition and expect a service out of that, but the state government chips in a significant share for many colleges. The idea
In the case of private colleges, there are donors who really want the type of learning that goes on there to continue. It was somewhat more of a free market, as, before recently when the loan-bubble ramped up, tuition would be what the market for this sort of thing would bear on the part of the students.
Another reason higher-ed is not like a normal business is that the bigger universities bring in research money. The original idea is that this is also good for the state and society in terms of the eventual benefits therefrom, and graduate students would get more learning in the process. I think that this noble concept has also been corrupted, as nowadays, the research associated completely with bringing in the money. It's not about education so much, and the learning suffers greatly. Well, it does sound like a normal business, you may say, but the differences are the labor is not free-market labor, but grad-students mostly imported for the work only (who cannot teach well due to poor English), and these university research groups are very much in cahoots with governments of all sorts (yeah, regular business is about this way now too, granted).
Lastly, to define what the service really is that these "customers" - the students and the taxpayers of the state (or donors), are receiving, it could just be the piece of paper. For many employers, this is not necessarily a certificate of "knowledge gained", but also an indicator that this guy can at least work toward a long-term goal - the work it took to graduate The knowledge part is one thing, but for humanities majors, for instance, even in the past, it did not really place the graduate in a certain job. However, for all majors, but especially for the non-STEM (Science, Engineering, Math, Computers - hey, that doesn't spell STEM - we may need to get schooled here) fields, the 2nd part is key. In the past, with very good higher-ed in this country, employers could figure the non-STEM graduates were already screened. As many on the alt-right have rightfully said, this was even more important after the use of IQ tests were outlawed for reasons of being too fair, I guess, and making people notice who the dumb people were.
Here's the problem - the way the job market for decent jobs is now, and with the drastic lowering of standards for college graduates now (partly due to enrolling anyone who can pay - guess what - they all can*!), the piece of paper obtained by the one of the customers, the student, may not be worth so much. The only measure of this is whether the individual obtains a job that would be better in pay and/or quality than one he would have gotten 4-6 years earlier as a non-customer of higher-ed. The institutions may or may not measure this, but payment for service is not contingent on this metric (hey, I could be a lawyer.) The other customer, the taxpayer of that state, really never had a say in this either. This means there is what we economists (or those of us who play one on TV) call a "moral hazard" here. Without the feedback loop from the loss of business, $$$, and goodwill from the graduates who have not gotten their money's worth, the incentive to change policies (admittance, standards, teachers who can speak freakin' English, etc) is non-existent. This is the problem
We did not get into the money part of this today, as this lecture was taken from the notes of a colleague who scribbles in Chinese ;-} OK, go out, play frisbee and drink beer. See you next class (Oh, yeah, you, young lady - the blonde one - I may have a quick extra-curricular assignment for you - see me in the office.).
* This is due to the government-backed student loan madness, producing the bubble of which this post intended to cover - coming next class.
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White Wedding - Billy Idol
Posted On: Thursday - February 16th 2017 8:04PM MST
In Topics: Music
No matter whether you don't like the melody or the sound, or even the lyrics, you've gotta admit one thing: Nobody can sneer like this guy!
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Chuck E. Cheese vs. the US Feral Government
Posted On: Thursday - February 16th 2017 9:04AM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Big-Biz Stupidity
No, it's not a lawsuit, although that sounds like fun. This post is totally non-political; it's just a comment on how much trouble it is to get something done in this modernized computer-run
I called up Chuck E. Cheese. Of course, in this day and age, one would not expect to be put in touch with Mr. Cheese himself, nor his secretary (secretary, what's that?). I just expected to get ahold of the local establishment to arrange for a birthday party. Apparently, it doesn't work that way. There was a phone voice-system that took about 3 hang-ups and many, many experimental touch-tone-mashing sequences that took most of 1/2 an hour to reach a human. At that point, would they (someone in Texas, so there's that) really expect the caller to not be really cheesed-off? It took about 10 minutes before I calmed down and we could arrange the party. I WILL NOT go through the automated stuff, unless I have already found out all details, as a question WILL come up, necessitating a 1 minute talk with a human being!
I really don't like how mad I got, because the lady in Texas didn't know how much damn trouble it was to talk to her, until I told her. But, I guess the CEO, the big cheese himself, coincidentally named Mr. Cheese, reckons that wasting 1/2 hour of customer time is not important compared to taking 2-5 minutes total of the call-center lady's time at < $15/hr - I'm counting for overhead.
(Yeah, keep smiling, you globalist bureaucratic rodent!)
Hey, Chuck, did you ever hear of customer goodwill? No doubt, your beancounters have a harder time trying to get numbers for goodwill than for sales and expenses. However, it is a non-negligible factor in running a retail business like yours. You need
At the end of my phone call, I told the nice lady in Texas that "you people are harder to reach than the US Government!" That is a big insult to you, Chuck - get your
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Steve Bannon hasn't gone far enough yet
Posted On: Thursday - February 16th 2017 8:58AM MST
In Topics: Trump Media Stupidity
(Graphic lifted from VDare.com)
Per this short Eugene Gant blogpost on VDare, President Trump's advisor Steve Bannon called the press people "the opposition party" right in front of them. They seemed perturbed about hearing people just say this out loud. From Eugene Gant:
She ended her post with a bit of fake news: “Those outlets aren’t usually grouped together in any way, least of all as a unified party sharing any one ideology, oppositional or not, but this is a new era for the press and the people they serve.”
Right. The legacy media doesn’t have an ideology.
Yep, this presidential administration should get their new press policy (previously written about here) going ASAP. In addition to ignoring the press enemies, they should also actively bring in some of the (ahem, cough, me, me) good bloggers, say Instapundit, aka Professor Glenn Reynolds, Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, and Peter Brimelow (or John Derbyshire), just as a start ASAP.
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University Bubble 101
Posted On: Wednesday - February 15th 2017 12:27PM MST
In Topics: Student and other Snowflakes University Global Financial Stupidity Inflation
On the topic of Global Financial Stupidity, with emphasis on the US, the University financial loan bubble is one that the writer is more familiar with than, say, the mortgage world, or treasury bonds. A glimpse into this problem came up during daily life just now.
We ate at a local restaurant for Valentines (beats buying into the jewelry racket - hey that's another one!). This particular restaurant has been at the same spot near the state university here for over 30 years. Firstly, just as gauge of inflation, the same exact menu item that I used to get every time I ate there in the early-oughts cost just about double what it did then. I can remember distinctly this London broil being $6.99 back in, I'll be generous, 2000. The same portion is $12.99 now, and they don't automatically give you tons of cornbread anymore either (this is cough, cough, Bullshit, cough, cough). Let's do the math, and I am going to account for compounding. It comes to 3.7% average price inflation over 17 years. Ah-hah, US Gov't! (Keep in mind, the calculator I found on moneychimp did not account for the lack of readily available cornbread!) Now this post is not specifically about inflation, so read on ....
A sign at the front where the hostess hung out said "We take University cash" or something like this. I though, hey, maybe I'll get some of this to make up some of my losses in Bitcoin. No, joking here, but I asked about it because I wondered what kind of currency they meant. It turns out, this means they take the student meal cards or chips or whatever it is today. I don't know what kind of odious deal they have with the school, but to me it's a very good window into the financial dealings and what this student loan bubble is about. Students can use the card that deducts money directly from some type of account.
OK, this deal has been around a long time, and back in the day, one could get in the neighborhood of 15-20% off meals in the long run by getting a card for the semester providing for X number of meals. The difference now is that students don't think about the few hundred dollars they had to shell out - probably near 1000 today - to get the card. All dealings are with student loan money for most of these students, and it's like a blank check. After all, it'll be what it's gonna be - a whole, almost mortgage-like, sum of money that will be due when I get that great job using my 5 1/2 year degree in what-have-you. No money will be due until then due to deferrals, extensions, grad school if I gotta, so just let it ride. The restaurant can make as much money off students that are on a "who-cares" budget than the regular customers. $12.99 for the London broil? Who cares! Don't be a cheap ass.
This is the way it's going until the lenders (US taxpayers) get wise, and what can't go on, won't go on, to paraphrase Instapundit's quote of somebody, somewhere on the internet.
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High Temperatures causes Tempers in those with bad Temperaments
Posted On: Wednesday - February 15th 2017 8:31AM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Global Climate Stupidity
Here is an article on Zerohedge.com about some scientists(really?) that are trying very hard to push us up to the peak of stupidity. The ZeroHedge headline is "The Planet Made Them Do It" - Scientists Claim Left-Wing Violence Is Caused By Global Warming, and the original article is from the SHTFPlan site by Mac Slavo - I like his stuff, but ZeroHedge has the best commenters that you can't read with an older browser. Man, I see this is really nested now - here is the ORIGINAL original article from the NaturalNews website. OK, any one of these'll do ya.
“When people get uncomfortably hot, their tempers, irritability, and likelihood of physical aggression and violence increase,” says the analysis, implying that global warming somehow turns all of society into a kind of “Hell’s Kitchen” sweltering oven that relieves people of responsibility for their actions.
Yes, tempers flare more when people are uncomfortably hot vs comfortable or uncomfortably cold - another million taxpayer dollars shot to hell. That waste is not the serious stupidity here, that's just the low-grade standard stuff. These people are blaming a non-existent, but even with belief in the Global Climate Models (start here in this Topic Key) a 1 C increase in temperature at some kind of mythical "average location" for a big change in temperament.
No, no, my peer-reviewed friends, you could learn a lot more about why tempers are flaring, and why they are going to flare up like a hemorrhoid on steroids* in the near future, by reading this very blog. Global Climate StupidityTM ain't got nothing to do with it.
* Hey, new terminology here - ROR for "Roid on Roids" (click to save in local glossary).
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Cravin' Melon from Red Clay Harvest
Posted On: Tuesday - February 14th 2017 8:59PM MST
In Topics: Music
These guys are from South Carolina:
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Madison Avenue and the Advertising Business - Does it even work at all?
Posted On: Tuesday - February 14th 2017 6:19PM MST
In Topics: TV, aka Gov't Media Salesmen Curmudgeonry
This article, is about modern-day commercial making, and a parody of it on Saturday Night Live (still on TV, who knew?). In particular the parody was of the agenda-driven commercial with no information about the product being sold. Of course, all of the agendas would be left-wing, globalist garbage.
Now this is something I don’t understand very well regarding the real advertising business, but I’m sure the SNL skit is a pretty realistic parody of it. I’ve heard many times that it’s the “name recognition” that gets people to buy. They say it doesn’t matter whether the ad has anything to do with the product or service, they just want to get that product (or service) brand name in your head.
Someone tell me how do you think that really works? (My contention is that it doesn’t, and things sell or don’t sell, and Madison Avenue has squat-all to do with it these days.) You’ve got your Coke-cola and you’ve got your Pepsi – who has not heard of either one? Is the idea to associate this one, say Pepsi (which sucks, BTW) with this musical slut artist so people remember, “Hey, “Lady Madonna”/”Pepsi”, yeah whenever I see “Pepsi”, I think “Lady Madonna”. OK, so I’m at the store, and my mind goes “Here’s the Pepsi; “Lady Madonna likes this!” “but … it sucks, if I’m gonna drink caffeinated sugar water, I’ll take Coke-cola.” “I like Lady Madonna, but she can go buy whatever the hell she drinks, who cares?”
What about products/services that most people have NOT heard of yet? Yeah the idea of advertising is to let people know what you’re selling. “Here are some grimy amigos climbing over a fence, cleaning up all their trash on the way across the Colorado (river) desert, finding a new home, cutting down on Carbon (for the Carbophobics out there in TV land) when they get there and enriching the living s__t out of our lives” NOW “Dog Pile II Web Services – put your work on the Thunderstorm Cloud!” How does that help me as a consumer?
I found no problem with the old ads that would try to sell you on stuff based on WHAT IT DOES!. Yeah, there was a lot of bull involved some of the time, but at least it was informative.
A good comment back on the article page on unz.com by commenter Mr. WowJustWow was:
The point of a Coca-Cola commercial isn’t to convince you that Coca-Cola is great, it’s to convince you that other people have seen the commercial. Ever heard the phrase “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM?” Well, no party host ever got a dirty look for loading a cooler with Coca-Cola instead of RC Cola.
What about that lizard though? Even past my TV-watching daze (get it?) I still have seen that 6 in tall British lizard talking about auto insurance on friends’ or hotel TVs. He’s very entertaining and cute. However, it has not changed anything about my purchasing of auto insurance no matter what new hijinks that cold-blooded limey is up to. What would a lizard know about insurance, is what I wanna know.
What’s the point?
Possibly Madison Avenue Big-Advertising is the biggest scam since Global Climate DisruptionTM or even Social Security. We at PeakStupidity do not readily fall for scams and hoaxes. The last one was probably our deal with the alleged son of the deposed King of Nigeria. There was no way to see that coming, just as it went with this guy:
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Semisonic - All about Chemistry
Posted On: Monday - February 13th 2017 8:20PM MST
In Topics: Music
I'd forgotten about this great song. I know nothing else by this band. This is a good tune with great lyrics and even a great video story.
(Ignore "Explicit Version" - maybe that was to get clicks, but there's nothing explicit to it.)
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Protesters unclear on the concept
Posted On: Monday - February 13th 2017 7:34PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Lefty MegaStupidity
In this VDare article, another great one by James Kirkpatrick he writes more about what these judicial decisions overturning the President's control of immigration are really saying. Please read the whole thing, but here is a short excerpt:
The claim that non-Americans somehow possess constitutional rights, and have a right to immigrate to the United States, is laughable on its face. Yet quietly, without debate or even acknowledgement of what is going on, it has become the consensus in the MSM, in the courts—and in the streets.
What got to me was the picture at the top of this article of protesters, regarding the sign I zoomed in on here:
The girl holding that sign doesn't look stupid. Of course, the only thing that tells us is, "looks ain't is!" Do you think she understands the magnitude of the problem we are going to face soon? There are 2 concepts I think she does not get.
1) I imagine the signholder just thinks about other immigrants who live peacefully as Americans, work hard, fit in, etc. That works only on a small scale, see, say about 1-5 % immigrants in a country. I've known plenty, and some are and have been very good friends, but things have been ramped up a few orders of magnitude here. Point 1-a is that assimilation works fine if new arrivals are spread out reasonable well. Hell, I remember that even in the early 1980's, we avoided Miami because "it's like going to Cuba" and "you can be in places where nobody speaks English". That's an example of a place where immigration wasn't working out for Americans, but it was just one spot back then (OK there was also Chinatown in downtown NYC, some small areas of S. California were like Mexico). It wasn't a worry back then because the numbers were much smaller.
2) Islam is not just another religion where they go to different shaped churches, possibly on a different day of the week (better for traffic, right?). The 1st concept applies here - a very few muslim families spread around here and there will probably fit in fine, but when an area, like say, Dearbornistan, Michigan, have populations in the 100's of thousands, there is no assimilation, and the culture is the same as that of the Islamic countries where the people came from. The 2nd concept here is that this particular culture is really at odds with anything Western. If you want to learn more, you might just read our profile of Ann Barnhardt, in which she reads passages from the Islamic holy book. She's got 'em bookmarked and all, albeit with bacon strips, not your normal paper ones.
So, what's with the sign? Are you really a Christian, or are you just saying you are? If you're serious about it, you've really got to wonder whether the sons and daughters of your church will eventually be living under Sharia law, or barring that, involved in some sort of civil war, assuming anyone in the Christian churches ever ends up taking a stand at all. What will you do after you've let it go too far? Where could your children even bug out to when it does?
Just like the last post, about feminism, we've got to start respecting the laws of nature. Putting big populations of two very dissimilar cultures together is breaking the natural law that says, people, in general (the bulk of them) like to be with their kind.
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Feminism 101 - It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!
Posted On: Monday - February 13th 2017 8:58AM MST
In Topics: Feminism
There's so much to write about feminism just based on everyday stupid-happenings in today's society. As with the Global Climate DisruptionTM and Global Financial Stupidity topics, we will include some posts of introduction to the subject, a little history of the steady rise in the amount of stupidity accumulated in this "stupidity space", if we may.
One could go back just under 100 years on this subject to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution. That would be a good start, but the reader can easily learn as much as PeakStupidity about the details of the woman's suffrage movement. Un-coincidentally, right after that Amendment was ratified in 1920, the push for prohibition of alcohol started. You see, women like men a lot, because they need them, until they have a chance to try to change them; then they expend a great deal of effort to change them. Married men know this.
I'm sure there would there be more to cover between the 1920's and the 1960's if I were a womyn's studies major and wanted to make this my dissertation, but in my case that would only happen on the kind of cold day in hell that would have made this computer into a superconductor by now and have probably burned my screen out (can you do that to LCD's?). So, there may have been some special coins minted, some articles written, etc., but the serious changes to our society from feminism started in the mid-1960's.
Besides being a somewhat busy day, this post has suffered from what I am dubbing a "blog fart". It's, if I may, a brain fart of a blogger. I really did get stuck trying to transition from the first 3 paragraphs to what I want to say today without writing a men's studies dissertation (What are "men's studies" - well the whole world, of course - we built it all.) Suffice it to say that the last half-century +- only a year or two was a time in which feminism transformed from a minor political hobby to a massively invasive form of highly-corrosive, floculated, superheated stupidity heretofore never observed in human history, and prehistory (from my readings) for that matter.
Feminism is one of the Stupidity Quadrad (along with Global Financial Stupidity, Immigration Stupidity, and Political Correctness) that comprise an estimated 85% of all stupidity emanating from the Western hemisphere, on a good day! Seriously now, there is no way for a country to remain conservative with the level of feminism seen today.
The quick point for today is just that the gender roles that Westerners are acting in are not in accordance with the laws of nature. One can find a study proving anything in this area, but from being around quite a while and trying to hold to the truth, it is very apparent to me that the noncompliance with natural gender roles makes people unhappy and is just corrosive to society. To be more specific here, one need only look at the female body (or multiple ones). It helps to be a man for this part. Is there no doubt in your mind what this body is made for (once you reach puberty)? It may seem like just a sex urge for most of your life, but one wonders after a while why that urge is there, why certain women parts are always important to men, etc. Then, there is the science (that used to be common knowledge before stupidity ramped up) about women's bodies and ability to conceive, carry safely and give birth to a new life over the female lifespan.
The "have-it-all" (career and family) story that has been promised to women this whole time - the 1/2 century - has taken a long time to get to the debunking stage. It being debunked by science is one thing, but the debunking via experiences of 100's of millions of women, and men who are a part of this crap too, is a real shame. It's one thing to learn a small thing the hard way, but to take a lifetime to learn a life experience that used to be common knowledge (i.e. learned the easy way, from advice) is just sad.
It turns out that, for the most part, women are happier doing what they were created for, making the babies with all of the various stages thereof and teaching and raising them in a home they feel comfortable and safe in. Men were made to be able to do anything it takes to make this happen - meaning about everything else that must go on in the world. Men are happier being out in the world part of the time and getting away from the women crap. Even women in the workplace have told me that they don't like being there dealing with the women crap!
I asked a 24 year-old babysitter who had her own baby too, how difficult it was to pop out the little one, since we were a good bit older as parents. "Pretty easy, no problem". "Kinda like taking a dump?" I asked (sorry for the language). "Yeah, pretty much." This is no new news, but just to conceive in the late 30's is not guaranteed, the chance of miscarriages is much higher, birth is more painful and more risky, and the risk, though still small, of a serious problem with the baby is very much higher than with a women in the prime 15-28 age range.
Feminism has been trying to force people to ignore the laws of nature, just for humans. These laws can be suppressed by governments and societies via coercion, but they can't be repealed, even by a judge in California. (As a side note it's also interesting that there is a big overlap between the nominal "treehugger" crowd who supposedly loves nature and the crowd who'd support all things feminist. It's quite the contradiction, really.)
To combat this dangerous form of stupidity, the first thing we need to remember is:
IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE!
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The Eleven (in 11/8 time)
Posted On: Saturday - February 11th 2017 5:44PM MST
In Topics: Music The Dead
This is some hardcore live Dead. This song, after the segue-way from whatever song preceded (probably St. Stephen), is in 11/8 time - listen after about 1:25 and count 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, repeat.
From Los Angeles, CA August 23rd, 1968
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There are two drummers - Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann.
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What's wrong with these people (salesmen)?
Posted On: Saturday - February 11th 2017 7:44AM MST
In Topics: Salesmen Curmudgeonry Economics
After all the political stupidity that could take 100 bloggers working 24/7/365/multiple millenia to keep up with, let's take a break for just a few more days from this. Here's the story about salemen as a follow-up from this post from way back last year. Sure, it's nothing really profound, but it does kind of make us wonder "what's wrong with these people?"
Even though the quick story about the cable salesmen was to display my disdain for TV in particular and also how to get rid of these guys, another point left out was the guy's refusal to either believe me, or refusal to give up when I told him what I wanted to buy (just internet service). Next about these window salesman of the 1990's.
The windows in the old house were going to have to be replaced sometime, and while watching TV (back when I did) there appeared an ad for replacement windows with an 800 number (again, this is way back, so no internet at my house). It wasn't like I even had the money at this point for this, but I figured I may as well get an idea of what was coming so I could take care of it in the next few years. I don't think one waited on hold much or went through voice recognition systems back then, so I got a guy from whom I really tried to get a quote - simple really, easy layout, 20 or so windows - all the same size except for the smaller bathroom one (I had measured them already). After a while I realized he was not going to give me any idea of a price, which was all I wanted. It was important, he insisted, for some people to come by.
OK, so a lady salesman and her trainee salesman showed up in the evening as I and one roommate were have a beer or two. It started out fine; I gave them the numbers. Yeah, OK, but there are lots of options, they were going on about. How about the simplest plastic framed double-paned and so forth - I gave them every detail they wanted. "What's the price estimate?" "Well, there's a lot to it, prices go up and down." "OK, what are they at now?" "Well ... it's tough to ...."
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"Rrrrowwwwww!" We heard my tomcat in a fight (or big argument) with another feline right outside and we had to check this out. Cat fights are pretty amazing. These guys were so pissed off at each other, staring each other down from 3 feet away, and standing on two legs for a coupla minutes (they'll never do that for you, even for ice cream!). They don't care what the humans have to say at this point - you're just a bystander and have no say in this. All of us watched the cats from the front porch for about 10 minutes until I chased them across the street....
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OK, where were we? "Yeah, well you know that plastic is made of oil and all, and with the situation in the Middle East (this could be any time in last 1/2 century, right?) that's unstable, so you know ... " "How much money's worth of oil could possibly be in the pound or two of plastic in each window." "Oh, it's hard to tell....." There was some additional bullcrap out of the salemen's mouths about the engineering of the windows, and my roomate got some good smart-ass remarks in, but finally, after an hour and a damn half had gone by (not including the catfight),
"Man, I really can't buy anything without having an estimate, at least, of the price." The salesmen's smiles went away, and the lady goes "I'm sorry then, I guess we'll get going." and they both got up off the couch with their sad faces and were saying goodbye. After getting no idea still how much it would eventually cost to put new windows on my house, and a coupla' hours wasted, I still didn't want to be rude: "Well, you did a pretty good job, I told the trainee guy." "No, I guess not" he said "we didn't make any sale."
"How could I buy something without knowing the price?!" I finally had had enough. "What is wrong with these people?", I wondered later on. Really, when you get to thinking about it, they wouldn't be doing the same sales technique if it didn't work. "What is wrong with people?", is the real question, as idiots will sign on some dotted line without knowing the price. These people are voting for congressmen who put our whole land in debt; that's what comes out of this.
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Victoria - The Kinks (live)
Posted On: Friday - February 10th 2017 8:34PM MST
In Topics: Music
There was too much else going on, and no time for posts today. Tomorrow morning will be the time for the 2nd salesmen story.
For now, per PeakStupidity's take on what makes a good song, this song by the British band The Kinks illustrates our point again. This is from the 1970's, and one could imagine how left-wing (not in the same whacked-out way as now) the audience was. Yet the lyrics of "Victoria" are about longing for the monarchy of Queen Victoria and the British Empire upon which "the sun never set", kind of a conservative theme.
However, the audience loves it anyway - Ray Davies (and all of them) are pretty high-energy. I bet that was a great show. From 1979 in Providence, Rhode Island:
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Another for the Parrotheads
Posted On: Thursday - February 9th 2017 6:37PM MST
In Topics: Music
I guess Parrotheads gonna parrot, it's what they do.
This one is not a typical fun Buffett song about sailing, flying or girls. The lyrics are serious and very moving, if you ask me. I think it's the best Jimmy Buffett song ever.
"He went to Paris" from the album "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean" (no video):
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Lyrics at 2:10:
WAS: "... he was recalling, answers he never found"
SHOULD BE: "... he was recalling, answers he'd never found"
That's a critical difference in the meaning of the song!
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Great Ann Coulter column
Posted On: Thursday - February 9th 2017 12:11PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Pundits
There's really nothing to write as witty and as accurate as what Ann Coulter wrote yesterday - "Ann Coulter: A Maniac Is Running Our Foreign Policy (It’s Not Trump, It’s Judge James Robart)".
We're gonna do our best impression of the godfather of pundits, Mr. Glenn Reynolds then [Instapundit mode]:
Ann says:
If only we were able to deport citizens, we could use Trump’s new policy of excluding those who are “hostile” toward our country to get rid of Judge James Robart.
Heh!
Judge Robart’s veto of Trump’s travel ban notwithstanding, there is not the slightest question but that the president, in his sole discretion, can choose to admit or exclude any foreigners he likes, based on “the interests of the United States.”
The Clinton administration used the executive branch’s broad power over immigration to send a 6-year-old boy back to a communist dictatorship. The courts were completely powerless to stop him.
As explained by the federal appellate court that ruled on Elian Gonzalez’s asylum application: “It is the duty of the Congress and of the executive branch to exercise political will,” and “in no context is the executive branch entitled to more deference than in the context of foreign affairs,” which includes immigration.
Indeed.
Read the whole thing.
[/Instapundit mode]
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Ron Paul: Trump can't stop the financial collapse coming
Posted On: Thursday - February 9th 2017 7:43AM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity
This is over a week old, but it's not like a week's earlier warning is going to change anyone's mind on this: Ron Paul Warns: "Second Financial Bubble Going To Burst Soon... Even Trump Can't Stop It".
OK, if you don't think much of Ron Paul, you can write this off in your mind like all the other financial speculation news you read or hear day-in and day-out. PeakStupidity has much admiration for this guy, possibly the one honest man that has been in the US Congress in the last half-century (if you're the other one, please add a comment now, or forever hold your piece (sic ;-}.
I've said it before, and gosh-darnit, I'll say it again - if this man had just taken to heart the advice given to him in early 2012 by proto-PeakStupidity to speak about illegal immigration in the Republican primary, he'd probably have been president for the last 4 years and 3 weeks. Yeah, he didn't have the charisma (any more that is) compared to Trump, or you could say was a "lower energy" guy. True dat, but it was the fact that Trump came out of his hotel the summer before last talking about the damage to this country being caused by immigration that got him going. I know that if Representative (at that time) Paul (TEXAS!) had come out swinging about this issue, and just won the next primary on this, it would have been very hard for the LP to bury the story at that point.
BTW, just my opinion (I'd ask Mr. Paul, if I had a chance), but I believe even Ron Paul would admit that he would not have been able to get the country to avoid the financial pain coming per his words linked to in zerohedge above, if he were president back in '12. It's just that we could all have gotten the ship steered at least in the right direction toward fiscal responsibility and smaller government and liberty, so that we could get out of this hole in the right direction (upwards, not downwards towards Hell, as it could go). People would have been prepared for what's coming.
Again, we like the anti-PC, anti-immigration-invasion and basically pro-Americans attitude of Donald Trump. However, he's not gonna magically get us, or the rest of the world out of the major financial turmoil and pain that is coming once payments get demanded for the bills due and the bad checks we've got floating all over creation (See the whole topic).
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Down to the banana republics .... went Fred Reed
Posted On: Tuesday - February 7th 2017 9:00PM MST
In Topics: Music Websites Pundits Global Financial Stupidity
Fred Reed is a writer/pundit who writes weekly or so columns on his Fred on Everything site. He is also featured on Unz.com in this"space".
This guy has been around a long time and seen a lot as a reporter, and he writes great columns, most of the time, about all sorts of things: race, the American police-state, American politics, etc. Especially good are his columns that refer to his past as a Southern boy/young man somewhere in Tidewater Virginia, I believe. He makes great contrasts between the relatively free and confident country this was in his youth and today's 'Murica. I could put a long, mostly positive, review on PeakStupidity, but that's not the point of this post.
Mr. Reed is what you call an expatriate. He moved down to Mexico a good while back and is married to a senorita down there. His experience living there and the contrast to what this country has become also makes for good writing, as he still has business or maybe just family in this country, so he sees the differences when he visits back. Now, I don't fault him at all for his appreciation for what is better down there (at this point in our history). Yeah, people are more relaxed (well, when there's no kidnapping or narcoterrorism going on), it could be a better quality of life is some other ways I can imagine.
Here's the thing: Mr. Reed defends Mexico and everything Mexican a bit much for this writer and many commenters on his blog (at Unz.com) also. This is especially important in this critical time when Americans are getting serious about our immigration problems, and not a year too soon either. I would like to write some of this reply to him there, but he may not read his commenters at all (in contrast to Steve Sailer, who, amazingly, replies to many of the people.) So, I don't intend for this to be pundit-to-pundit gossip, as I'd discuss this directly with the guy if I could. There will be a point when the American money runs out. Seriously, it's coming later, and it's what puts the Topic Key "Global Financial Stupidity" on this post also.
OK, off of Fred Reed for a while, but I will connect this expatriate thing back to this pundit shortly.
The idea of leaving it all behind and heading south to a more relaxing climate, and more relaxed way of life, and additionally, to a place where you don't need to use much of your money (or don't need to have much to begin with) to live a nice quiet life is especially tempting to single older guys. Just the girls that probably do treat men better, maybe wishful thinking, is enough to cause one to sell it all and get a passport and one-way plane ticket. The thought of getting out of "the rat race" and being in a place where the money goes far is another thing. It's much easier for a single guy, as, for families, safety is a worry, but also, the single man is not so demanding and really only needs a few things. Next, some music from 40 years back to better describe the concept of an expatriated American.
PeakStupidity tries to post a music video most nights, but this will be one most connected with a post with a real point to make. Jimmy Buffett sang this song, written by Steve Goodman, in the LATE 70's, we're talking right at 40 years ago! It's an obscure "album cut" too. This is one that, with a decent tune, is still an exception to the PeakStupidity rule that melody and sound rule over lyrics. These lyrics evoke partly the romantic part of this single expatriate lifestyle, but also gives the "grass is not always greener" side too. It's such a great song, and the lyrics could apply today, with a caveat that brings us back to Fred Reed's point of view - after the video:
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(From "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, from Jimmy Buffett's prime - more Buffet coming - got to please the Parrot- and Dead- heads, both, but there's probably a lot of overlap.)
Please, listen to the song first, before this last part, as the lyrics are so descriptive.
Now, it's gotta be great to live the good life, probably by the beach in Costa Rica, Belize, or maybe even on a different continent, in, say, Thailand - the song still rings true. You've got a guy that you pay $2 weekly to do the laundry, the girlfriend doesn't take much to support, or you could rent them on the cheap and have change left over for tequila, the rent is $300 and it's $10 more for a girl to clean the place each week. Yeah, your small pension or SS check, or small remote business profits go a long way.
OK, getting to my point now, whewwwww, yeah this is a good plan for some guys, or so it seems. Jimmy Buffet (or really Steve Goodman, the songwriter) has some caveats, but here is one that wasn't a factor in the 1970's. Everything that makes life good down there is dependent on a STRONG DOLLAR. This is neither the time (late at night) nor the place (not zerohedge or Ron Paul's blog) to give the details, but the dollar will not for long be the powerful currency it is today. The good life of an expatriate will go bad quickly when the dollar turns into mostly just scrap paper, as is typical of most currencies around the world, and especially the 3rd world. It won't take too much inflation and decline of the mighty dollar before the girls aren't too interested anymore, expenses become a worry - turning the whole rum and sunsets on the beach deal into "rat-race 2.0" and YOU end up being the guy that is doing laundry for $2 a week.
Lastly, back to Mr. Reed. Does he not live on American money? I realize his wife is educated and all that, but I don't know if he is truly living like a Mexican - I mean one that does not get paid in dollars and cannot un-bail back to the US if absolutely necessary. I think his view of Mexican life is a bit shaded by his living as an ex-pat, not a true Mexican who is stuck there living on the peso with no out.
This is by far PeakStupidity's longest post so far - I hope the reader can make sense out of it. Good night all.
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Education Secretary Nominee may be rejected.
Posted On: Tuesday - February 7th 2017 7:41AM MST
In Topics: Humor US Feral Government Educational Stupidity
If we've got to punt on any of these people, this Betsy DeVos broad is a good start. Zerohedge says Betsy DeVos In Danger Of Becoming First Cabinet Nominee In 28 Years To Be Rejected.
Listen, if you want to be my Secretary of Education you gotta play by my rules and follow the plan. Here's the plan:
Day 1) Meet and greet. Eat Donuts and talk about problem chilluns.
Day 2) Everyone in the conference room, like YESTERDAY!
Day 2.1) OK, all of y'all are fired. You've got till noon to clean out your desks.
Day 2.5) Make sure all employees are on the way out of the building. Serve donuts to prevent any hard feelings (and lawsuits related to said feelings.)
Day 3) Shut the whole mutha down!
Day 4) Accept new position at Department of Motherland Security.
Day 5) Repeat steps 1-3.
Day 6) Repeat steps 4-5, FOR NEXT Dept of XXXXXX
Day X) Exit when NUM_DEPTS == 0;
FOR LOOPS, BITCHEZ!
This woman was an NEA puke anyway. Get all governments out of education. Bring Stupidity down to a manageable level.
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[UPDATE - Tuesday Evening] Looks like she did get approved by the Senate with VP Pence's tie breaking vote.
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