Megan McArdle asks how you would want a hedge fund to behave if it handled your money. It’s not entirely an idle question. Hedge funds often represent institutional investors. The NYT reported in 2005 that one of pension funds that had moved assets into hedge funds was the General Motors fund. It’s been alleged, though I haven’t been able to find a hard citation, that the UAW pension fund is partly invested in hedge funds.
One of the first pensions to start working with hedge funds is also the nation’s biggest corporate pension fund, the $90 billion General Motors fund. It started with a small test investment in 1999 and increased it to about $2 billion in 2003, said Jerry Dubrowski, a G.M. spokesman. The company is using hedge funds, along with other unconventional investments, in hopes of getting something close to stock market returns without the market’s volatility, Mr. Dubrowski said. To pay out the $6.5 billion G.M. owes to its retirees each year, the pension fund must produce annual returns of a little more than 7 percent. Otherwise, G.M. will have to dip into the fund’s principal. At current interest rates, G.M. cannot get those returns with bond investments, and if it tries to juice returns by betting on the stock market, it will have to cope with market swings.
It is notionally possible for an individual or a class of persons to have interests on multiple sides of a dispute between creditors, provided the portfolio was diversified enough. Which means that for Barack Obama to favor one set of creditors ignores the fact that what they receive in one form they may have to pay for in another. It’s like giving you a “free gift” from money taken from your own pocket or charged to your credit card. More generally, the question is why the Executive Branch should be better than the markets and the courts at settling the very problem they were designed for. She writes that it:
brings us to the real question, which is, when did it become the government’s job to intervene in the bankruptcy process to move junior creditors who belong to favored political constituencies to the front of the line? Leave aside the moral point that these people lent money under a given set of rules, and now the government wants to intervene in our extremely well-functioning (and generous) bankruptcy regime solely in order to save a favored Democratic interest group.
No, leave that aside for the nonce, and let’s pretend that the most important thing in the world, far more interesting than stupid concepts like the rule of law, is saving unions. What do you think this is going to do to the supply of credit for industries with powerful unions? My liberal readers who ardently desire a return to the days of potent private unions should ask themselves what might happen to the labor movement in this country if any shop that unionizes suddenly has to pay through the nose for credit. Ask yourself, indeed, what this might do to Chrysler, since this is unlikely to be the last time in the life of the firm that they need credit. Though it may well be the last time they get it, on anything other than usurious terms.
My guess is that all of McCardle’s questions, while logical, are immaterial. This isn’t about economics. It’s about politics. And that doesn’t have to make sense. But what do you think? Open thread.
The first principal of politics is to reward a constituent group directly while taking from another group indirectly so they don’t notice. If the hedge fund doesn’t perform, the hedge fund manager would be blamed, not the President who heroically “saved” the UAW.
This isn’t about economics. It’s about politics.
Actually, it’s about messianism.
Hang on to your hats.
Watching the news, I am beginning to feel like Alice in wonderland. The world seems all out of shape as if Picasso were writing the news itself.
I was thinking more along the line of Salvador Dali.
You know, if there are otherworlders sitting among us. They have to be ROTFLTAO. Watching us repeat the same mistakes over and over. All the while believing the result will be different THIS time. Just fricking stupid.
Well, fear not. For we as a world will be quickly snatched from this cozy and secure crib and forcefully ejected back into the freezing cold hell of human reality. The reality that humans breed anti-social progeny that grow up to inflict massive change aka, horrors on humanity in the name of X (eh, can’t use that letter now…) Oh, I know. O. Yeah, that is it…
It’s all driven by the media business model, namely selling an audience to advertisers that can be easily and reliably drawn by soap opera news narratives.
It’s a minority of the country (20%) but the entire news target demographic. Others will watch for a one-off event but won’t be there every day, and so can’t pay the bills and don’t matter.
The media in turn determine what stories have legs and which don’t, and that’s why junk stories defy the 80% WTF reaction and live 24/7 for weeks, while real stories die without debate.
The soap opera 20% are the public debate gate-keepers.
Politicians accordingly dress every spin for soap opera.
Maybe this is the “transparency” that Obama promised. Simply being openly and transparently partisan. “We won.”
Waiting any moment for the thought police…
There are people who will buy no municipal bonds with any credit rating, since NYC’s Municipal Assistance Corporation proved that full faith and credit in the conditions means nothing. They’ll stiff you with whatever they want if the time comes, in that case paying off with new municipal bonds at a lower interest rate instead of money.
Investors have long memories.
JFSanders/4
I was thinking more along the line of Salvador Dali.
Yep, were thinking the same.
But Picasso is not out of the picture. His Guernica is what’s coming.
This isn’t about economics. It’s about politics. And that doesn’t have to make sense. But what do you think?
It’s the same problem mankind has suffered from since politics have existed- short-term expediency over longer term inevitability. The calculus here is that by the time the ill effect of such policies becomes self-evident, the responsible politicians (namely Obama) will be long gone.
A similar example- the mortgage “cram down” legislation the left wing has been pushing, which would allow bankruptcy judges to decrease the value of a mortgage loan already made to someone now in bankruptcy. Lenders will no longer lend if they don’t have assurances that their loans (contractual obligations) won’t be arbitrarily changed.
Result? The very people that the left (supposedly) wants to see have greater access to mortgages will not have that access. They’ll try to spin this to their political advantage (evil fat cat bankers, etc.), but the end result is less access.
Last, related example: the left should be against lotteries since they are largely a voluntary tax on the poor. Instead they are generally for them because the funds they bring in allow them to spend more, thus advancing their financially expensive political goals.
The right has their own versions of this, but in my biased view the hypocrisy is more evident on the left.
We will see a brain drain. Without capital, there is no innovation. Without innovation, there is no production of new, desired products. With no new desired products, there is no cash flow to maintain a business. The white collar workers will get cut first, to protect the union workers. There will be no jobs for engineers and others, except in India and China. The brave few will pack up and go. They will be paid far less in nominal dollars. But the cost of living is lower. The food is great. Most importantly, they will have the satisfaction of plying their trade amongst a population that wants them, needs them, and barely taxes them.
The United States is the Twentieth Century Motor Company writ large. Obama and his minions are he Starnes heirs. Life imitates art. So, it’s either to the East to continue an engineering career, or perhaps it’s time to open a diner and start a small commodities patch.
Let’s step back and take a look at unions in America today. Are more union employees as a percentage of the whole working for the state there days, or are they working for a publicly held company? What is the direct source of their compensation – is it business profits (voluntarily given through commerce), or taxes that have been accumulated via the law and the threat of the criminal justice system? What are the historical trends over the last fifty years? How does this impact the political relationships and preferences fostered by unions in America?
The folks reading this blog are familiar with the answers to these questions. Union jobs must be saved, and negotiated benefits must be protected to the maximum extent possible, even if it takes the nationalizing of the remainder of the union-based industry in this country to do that. When the rest of us get the opportunity to recognize what has happened and make things right, there will be a terrible reckoning in this nation. We at BC can “smell that smell” many years before most of our peers. Moral hazard is a rot that is as debilitating to a nation as drug and alcohol abuse are to an individual. America will require an intervention before this has run its course. This is open corruption on the grandest scale, and our media will make it smell like roses.
To say “It’s about politics.” implies to me that there are negotiations, even if conducted in the proverbial smoke-filled back room.
While admittedly a little slow on the uptake, I’m starting to suspect that the appearance of politics is merely window dressing – the fix is in, and in a very big way.
What we have here is a a power grab. Naked, and for all the marbles.
This is bad. We have had reliable business practices for so long that people have forgotten how important they are for general prosperity – things like the rule of law, and an agreed upon fair method of solving business disputes, beyond the whims of politicians are so important to building properity. They are what have separated us from the normal run of things with all the disasterous immature regimes around the world.
8. 2×4, Guernica? Man, that is HARSHING my buzz. Owww.
12. Willie G,
Yes, a power grab. It is always a power grab because nature abhors a vaccum and seeks to fill it as fast as possible. When those that seek power over others realize (NOT going to happen, but it is nice to have a dream, right?) that they will be usurped as they usurped another. Then there will be a chance for actual planet wide Life, Liberty, and Property.
This is all a problem of population pressure and as such we as a closed ecology are doomed to it in some form or another until we can practicly move off planet and survive on other worlds.
But, back to today. If we as a culture and political system cannot provide the correct enivironment for our children to flourish in the sciences as well as the arts. WE as a culture will cease to exist. Another culture that does provide those things will overtake us just as the crabgrass overtakes the bahia grass.
Jim
Many, many of the people who voted for President Obama, comprising his most ardent base, believe that Capitalism is the Problem!
Pay no attention to the fact that there are no examples of socialism that are as successful at providing personal liberty and prosperity as capitalism, the people who follow these emotions believe the facts are part of the problem, too. They’ll make up their own facts, if anyone asks, and the ardent Jacobins don’t ask anyway.
This is similar to the belief that America is the cause of all wars, because America is too strong and can act with impunity. With his vicious attacks on the CIA, and his strategic torpedoing of the most advanced projects in the defense budget, President Obama is weakening America on that front, too.
Outright social divisiveness is only right around the corner, as President Obama mocks the Tea Party movement and any media outlet that dares question his re-structuring of American and Western society.
JFSanders/14
Heh, you seem to be confusing the painting with a location. Not my intent.
OK what about Hieronymus Bosch’s right panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych? Would that be a better fit?
#13 “people have forgotten how important” the rule of law is. Not too Hopeful, that.
Just wait til the messiah gets his hands around the neck of the coal mining industry. The UMW is in line with his plan to bankrupt the source of their wealth. Go figure. Fact is -in my state(WV)- the majority of working miners are non-union; the union just represents pensioners. Electricity rates here are scheduled to “skyrocket” accordingly, with 43% increase already in the works. Not quite the 58% of the Governor’s recent raise, but substantial nonetheless.
16. 2X4,
No, I am with you. But now that you mention the location, well I think that fits too. Cubist interpretation of war can be taken as many things. But cubism’s natural discordance causes such limitations.
Jim
Tony/15
We have now 2 brainwashed generations. What do you expect?
It is hard to reason into someone(s) where there isn’t any reason to begin with.
As Bezmenov pointed out, they’re damaged goods. Nothing we can do about them. What we can do is to assure the the following generation is brought up right, at least part of it that we can guide, to rise from ashes.
Ttwobyfour @ 15
I don’t think it’s a generational thing, look at the crazy coot Dan Rather. My twenty-something kids are infinitely more conservative (rational) than my fifty-something friends. And of course, their kids are America-haters to the core.
In a way, it’s good that the Democrats have total POWER now, as President Obama put it in his autobio. Let’s watch what unfolds under their rule. I have to have faith that the majority of Americans are sensible enough to not be hypnotized any further by the media and our new rulers to put up with this for long.
Then again, true-blue Democrats STILL believe that FDR wasn’t responsible for the 17% unemployment that characterized the first TEN years of his Administration. We’ll always have those among who believe government can relieve them of the responsibilities of life.
My favorite t-shirt at the last Tea Party had an M-16 on the back, under the words “Come and take it.”
10. novanglus:
We will see a brain drain. Without capital, there is no innovation. Without innovation, there is no production of new, desired products. With no new desired products, there is no cash flow to maintain a business.
………………
Private Capital available for green energy research is drying up. However, there is a very large stash of public capital now available for green energy research to private companies and the feds are ramping funding for federal and university labs. Obama gave a speach recently about pushing federal spending for R&D up to 3%.
Its is true that the reason for private capital drying up is the stealth great society program that the dems pushed through freddie and fannie combined with bad oversight on wall st.
Do people in finance know how this is going to play out? Replacing calitalism with political allocation of capital in a democracy is even worse than political allocation in a dictatorship (where the dictator can do some unpopular things to see that the gears keep turning). Suppose this leads to a disaster: treasurues fail to sell, hyperinflation, destruction of all private capital markets because of uncertainty, whatever. The choice will be binary. Either the administration apologises and says mistakes were made or a scapegoat is found.
2×4: “OK what about Hieronymus Bosch’s right panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych? Would that be a better fit?”
I have a print on canvas of Bosch’s painting that hangs just over my desk. When we learned of it in college, it was interesting. When I saw it in person at the Prado, I was awestruck. My all time favorite piece of art, followed closely by Magritte’s False Window.
In the first decades of the 20th century there were republican progressives and democratic progressives. But progressives for the republicans meant something very different that progressives for democrats. For republicans–progressive meant doing stuff like building hydro electric dams. That seemed like a logical extension of 18th century river clearing or 19th century federal right of ways to the railroads so they could build the transcontinental railroads. For democrats — progressive– meant they were communists.
What drove both democrats and republicans at the turn of the 20th century was the profound scientific and technological revolution.
Tony/20
Rather was rather not a representative of his generation. He was an early convert, as it were.
You kept your kids out of the brainwashing machine effect, so did I. We can exchange mutual kudos, but that does not change facts on the ground. A majority of people going through school system between 1980 and now were programmed to hate capitalism. Or to be more precise, to hate a caricature of it that they presume to be a reality.
novanglus/23
“False Mirror” or “Window”?
The recent meltdown resulted when the various rubber bands of arbitrary policy making (guilty all)could be coaxed no further and we finally had a snap back. The market is truly admirable in how relentless it is at administering medicine no matter our efforts to seal the lips and turn the head away. It won’t attempt to pry open the mouth but simply pinches off the nose until pending suffocation has its effect.
The new adiministration is attempting to retension the bands using new and stronger winches. My fear for my posterity is that the the next event is a break. Once again my generation (the LEAST gen by the way) seeks to avoid its long overdue comeuppance.
My watch hasn’t melted yet. One day a ship will pull into NY harbor with a container that was prepared in Iran and then many watches and things will melt. Why NY? Remember what BHOs Chicago neighbor and rival Jesse Jackson called The City, Hymietown.
Twobyfour
I think you might be a little off in your numbers regarding Gen X and brainwashing. Not that we don’t have our freaks who worship the planet as a diety, but you must realize that they simply get the most press. I don’t necessarily picture you, my father or Habu painting your faces and dancing around Haight-Ashbury smoking dope in 1968 with American Flag patches sewn on the butt pockets of your jeans. Yes, our teachers were the same liberal sops that waited in the mews until their tenure got them administrator positions, but back when I graduated in ’88 the administrators and heads were still men with graying crew cuts. Men that had put Hitler on ice and rode Shermans in Korea. Dodge ball was the sport of choice (if not of Kings) and the most popular phrase for expressing non-support and contempt for a thing was “that’s gay”. The terrible plauge of hazing was years from being removed from either the schools or the military, it was applied zealously to those who needed it. My generation went to higher education to learn to make money, if anything we were taught to embrace the system so that we could buy the higher luxuries.
So now, when those luxuries are taken, expect the camoflauge veneer of PC and multiculturism to strip away right quick like… it’s just going to take the right amount of pain first.
I work in IT for a fortune 500 company, one of the larger IT staffed ones in fact. There are a lot of metrosexuals there, I see the truth in Whiskey’s analogies every day. But there are a great many wolves wearing sheepskins walking around too, with firm handshakes and hobbies besides golf and fantasy football leagues. Men that take and active role in their families and children’s upbrings, instead of being focused inwardly in SWPL self-worship. We know our own despite the platitudes and sweater vests.
And before anyone gets the fuse lit on their tampon… there are plenty of women of this mindset too, my own wife being one. But guess what… They differ from the men in their methods and some of their values. Androgeny (sp?) is not the way to get anything accomplished people. It’s amusing and revealing that the one diversity that the PC crowd abohors is one that actually is based on common sense and teamwork older than recorded history.
twobyfour/26:
False Mirror – I was struck by the blue sky and clouds. As a kid, I used to look to the sky on sunny days and think of the limitlessness of it – infinite, anything is possible. When I saw this painting, it caught my eye and reminded me of those days. That the limitlessness and infinite potential lies behind the eyes and in the mind. I hate the title – but I never limit my view of the world by what others might assert it to be, or want to tell me it is.
For Bosch, the thing that stuck me most was that Heaven is on the left and is empty, except for Jesus, Adam, and Eve. I remember when being lefthanded was a mark of evil, how ironic. But that a land of peace existed but once and no one has since been admitted. On the right is hell, well populated, dark, and chaotic – the future we face, unless we focus on the larger, central depiction of Earthly delights, a land of joyous fun, a land of plenty where pleasure reigns.
Doug S asks:
Do people in finance know how this is going to play out?
One needn’t be in finance to understand that one cannot get out of debt by borrowing from your yet-to-be-born progeny, and then expect them to appreciate it. They’ll owe us and we’ll deserve eugenics, at least. Retirement = death.
I like the initiatives below–however, you’ll notice that they’re surrounded by a lot of other junk “stuff”. ie there’s 787 billion of which 21.5 billion is for R&D. Notice too that the golden age of scientific R&D that obama refers to occurred on Eisenhower’s watch– in response to Sputnik. (The best that can be said about the car business — imho is that they are buying time for the US automakers–read GM & Chrysler. Ford is doing fine. Chrysler looks like its shaping up to be a negative learning experience for all parties involved–especially the auto unions–and likely too US taxpayers and the Italian automaker.)
Obama vows return to US science prominence
Obama pointed to the US goal set in the 1950s to reach space and its commitment to leading scientific innovation after the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching its Sputnik 1 satellite into space in 1957.
“That was the high water mark of America’s investment in research and development. Since then our investments have steadily declined as a share of our national income,” he said.
But Obama set a goal of devoting more than three percent of US gross domestic product (GDP) to research and development.
As part of his massive 787-billion-dollar stimulus bill, Obama has committed 21.5 billion dollars for research and development, and his 2010 budget includes another 75 billion to make research and experimentation tax credits permanent.
Obama announced the launch of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA-E, a 400-million-dollar initiative dedicated to “high-risk, high-reward research.”
Obama touched on his recovery plan that includes investing 150 billion dollars over the next decade on renewable energy sources.
My own theory is that the way to recapitalize the USA after the massive wealth destruction is first to 1.)keep energy prices low, 2.)then knock out US dependence on foreign energy sources
3.)continually drive down energy prices from all sources.
imho energy is not a commodity. rather it goes straight to productivity which goes straight to the wealth of a nation.
The US by creating the new decentralized energy model for itself will create a new energy model for the rest of the world and capitalized the rest of the world to boot.
The political left reveals how they will behave once they have power by the way they caricature the status quo.
-They told us capitalists amassed capital through the ruthless exploitation of workers. But this was not a plea for less exploitation. When the left gained power they took exploitation to the third power and decimated the workers — ultimately producing very poor results from the point of view of the survivors.
-They say there is no free press, only the money press. This is not a plea for objective reporting. They simply want to control the news to achieve their own ends.
-They say history is written by the winners. This is not a plea for objective history. They simply want to write history before they win and in a way that will help them win. And after they win, and are the winners, their version of history is the only one that will be allowed.
-They say monopoly capital is bad. This does not mean they are against monopoly capital. This only means they want to be the monopolists.
-They say they are against torture but love Cuba and own a Che T-shirt and beret.
-They say they are against corruption but that we can learn a lot from Mexico. Then they seize two major corporations and turn them over to their political cronies.
-They say they are against big oil: Look out for PetroUS.
-They say they are for science but will turn it into politics: Make the scientific personal and the personal political.
It’s been alleged, though I haven’t been able to find a hard citation, that the UAW pension fund is partly invested in hedge funds
Donald Luskin, on the Larry Kudlow show, said the same thing late last week.
Luskin is the guy who for years has performed as the free world’s truth squad –usually hilariously –on NYT’s Paul “vladimir ilyich” Krugman. See his long-running blog, presciently named The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid.
http://www.poorandstupid.com/chronicle.asp
Charles @ 33 is dead right –the secret steering committees in the anti-energy movement don’t give a flying fig about the environment –the objective is to de-energize America geopolitically.
Search current news about the lawsuits to stop uranium mining somewhere in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon –using the emotionalism of GC ‘what-ifs’ (which in reality are ‘as-ifs’). Nuclear –the “zero carbon” energy dontcha know.
The people I know on corporate boards won’t touch an Obama corporate hand out for R&D or anything else for that matter with a ten foot pole. That corporate R&D “investment from our government” any dimwit by now should know, means a loss of control to the Obamanations.
Obama, Geithner and Holder have poisoned the well of the public trust, and none of their joint public-private sector partnerships, not TARP, not PPIP or R&D grants, will work because of their duplicity.
To better guides our feeble minds our exalted Savior and annointed One has just appointed a special assistent to the President, Susan Crawford, for the internet. She has some neat ideas on how to nationalize, oops, my bad, facilitate the internet:
“Crawford stressed that the stimulus money is a down payment on future government investments in the Internet. “We should do a better job as a nation of making sure fast, affordable broadband is as ubiquitous as electricity, water, snail mail or any other public utility,” she said. Most of the time when I talk about the need to treat internet access like a utility, I get amused smiles “.
The internet; a public utility to be regulated and controlled.
Charles,
Obama takes the D out of DARPA. The civilian benefits of Defense research are made possible because of the discipline in the management of the research community and the focus that ensured broad based support. ARPA-E is another boondoggle factory in the making. It isn’t that the projects are all inherently unworthy, it is that a government administered civilian research system is a wasteful way to achieve results. If you really want to get energy efficient technologies developed then double the defense budget. Naval Engineering is all about energy efficiency. Between DoD and the Market we could have hundreds of small safe sealed 10 Mw reactors being produced “like sausages” and new battery and fuel cell systems.
LOTM/38:
ARPA-E sounds an awful lot like Dr. Stadtler at the State Science Institute in Atlas Shrugged. Why is it that everything I see the administration doing seems to be taken from Rand’s template of how to bring Capitalism to its knees? I feel as if they are intentionally mocking anyone who read and sympathized with the protagonists.
LFMayor/29
If you check a school in 1 10,000-25,000 town in Oklahoma, you’d find that things are not that bad. The kids do the pledge of allegiance, and although some “enviro-mental” intrusions creeped in, they are getting a reasonably balanced education, with emphasis on R’s and preponderance of old fashioned American values.
But that is not the case in the left coast blue cities. The process started actually in 70′s, but got into gears in 80′s. I can’t vouch for the timeline, I landed on the NA continent in 1984. But there are others that were inside the educational system and documented the change.
I am not saying all is rotten apples. You look at a county electoral map and that essentially represents the division. The blue specs, despite being territorially limited and drowning in the big red sea, are more populous. Thus far. They represent a slight majority per head count. They were also instrumental in hopeychange.
Of course, things are not that clear cut. If you look at the same map, but with actual red/blue votes factored in, you’d see a lot of shades of purple. But still, the first map represents two USofA, as different as night and day.
In a short time, the purple will probably get resolved to the primary component colors. Provided there is no outside intervention of some kind. That is somewhat likely and it is likely as well that any intervention would be directed towards populous areas. How I may feel about it is irrelevant. I just note the trends and probabilities.
It really does not matter if 0 & Co know what game they are playing or not (stupidity inherent in liberal ideology or a deliberate calculated strategy). The result would be the same, and if history is a guide, it won’t be pretty–the idea of some that they can control the horizontal and the vertical is pure arrogance and hubris. They will reap what they sow, that is certain.
It is just unfortunate that a lot of innocent people have to pay for that experience and that they have to learn again that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
Charles/33
A good strategy for starters, when things become normal again. May be a bit of wait. I think the next decade may be truly… testing.
I can wish to all here “may you not live in interesting times”, but I don’t hold any illusions.
Institutional investors have fiduciary duties which can get their boards and senior officers sued for breaching. And they should be if they give in to political pressure here.
Not to mention that the government officials doing the pressuring can be civilly liable for extortion and racketeering. Extortion to benefit third parties is still extortion.
It will be interesting when the Obama administration gets the federal government sued by investors for stealing their money.
In the quoted article from Megan McArdle she writes:
What do you think this is going to do to the supply of credit for industries with powerful unions? My liberal readers who ardently desire a return to the days of potent private unions should ask themselves what might happen to the labor movement in this country if any shop that unionizes suddenly has to pay through the nose for credit. Ask yourself, indeed, what this might do to Chrysler, since this is unlikely to be the last time in the life of the firm that they need credit. Though it may well be the last time they get it, on anything other than usurious terms.
I need to agree with Wretchard here. This is all immaterial. Just as the banks were forced to make loans to unqualified people to buy homes, so will the lenders be forced to make loans to unionized shops on the same terms as companies that do not have a unionized labor force. Doing so will be made illegal. And of course, this will lead to more problems, which in turn will be played as a justification for even more government intervention in the economy.
19. twobyfour
We have now 2 brainwashed generations.
AMEN Bro.
37. Unsk
The people I know on corporate boards won’t touch an Obama corporate hand out for R&D or anything else for that matter with a ten foot pole. That corporate R&D “investment from our government” any dimwit by now should know, means a loss of control to the Obamanations.
Obama, Geithner and Holder have poisoned the well of the public trust
AMEN Bro
Habu 44 & 45
AMEN Bro
@40 twobyfour
On an earlier thread, I noted that no little Triton would ever step foot into a govt school. However, you make a good point re a small OK town school – I believe we’d find similar bright spots in rural GA, but I’m so dang busy staying ahead of the taxman that I just don’t have the time to hunt one up…
If the time wasn’t a problem, I rather suspect that distance would still be an issue, as we’re more or less sitting on Atlanta’s Event Horizon… I figure that it’d take a good 50 mile move to get sufficiently clear to have a chance of finding a decent govt school option, and given the fact that I’m still tied to an office (also sitting on that initiative-sucking boundary), it’s gonna be christian private school for a while yet.
OT for the conspiracy theorists among us: my daughter just pointed out that the letters on the top row of keys on a QWERTY style keyboard can spell “our property”… somehow, somewhere, there’s something deeply mystical at work here… {{now where’s that Reynold’s wrap?}}
Some optimistic comments; seeing 0bama funding R&D, corporate props, community perps as mis-guided, not thought out, temporary aborations; to be corrected by the larger forces of economics and reality.
I see these fundings as deliberate devices for creating new institutions and corporal beings, giving them life at a crucial juncture where reality was just about to set in. Passing a gargantuous(sp?) treasure from the living corporals to their distorted and ravenous death seeking cousins.
Pivitolly, we are funding, with our own borrowed money, ACORN and La’Raza, etc. At the important times, turning points, not just any contraversy; serious demonstrations and petitions with attitude, will be confronted by these carefully guarded and nutured gendarmes. Hey, hoa, which way to go?
My 27 year old twin sons have given up talking to their peers about politics since they see that their peers are “brainwashed” to the extreme. When they were in college, a prof asked who would go for a gun if anarchy developed. Only my sons raised their hand; apparently no survival instincts any more either. I guess those kids believed the government would protect them. Yea, right.
Habu/46
????
I hope it is a spousal unit’s approval, not a sign of a dissociated, fractured personality!
Grabbed from some blog:
I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up.
She said she wanted to be President some day.
Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do? ‘
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed.
‘Wow…what a worthy goal. ‘ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that…you can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.’
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?’
I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party’.
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
I’m always interested in thinking about the unintended consequences of bold actions like this cramdown on Chrysler bondholders. So what are bankruptcy lawyers thinking about now that the administration has just run roughshod over decades of bankruptcy case law by promoting an unsecured class of creditors over a more senior class. Kind of means that none of the case law is worth jack anymore?
I would be that at least some of the lawyers are starting to pay attention now.
LFMayor –
It’s quite true that MARRIED women are conservative. They have to be: their sons (if they have them) and husbands are part of their family, their well-being, and therefore any move they make that advantages women (particularly Affirmative Action and the sort of Royalist Socialism found in Cuba that Obama proposes) must be balanced against the impact on husbands and sons.
BUT …
The plural of anecdote is not data.
US Census Bureau reports most women for the first time since they began keeping records are single. Therefore, no interest in husbands. Single motherhood, i.e. illegitimacy, is 28% or 41% depending on how you define it among Whites. In addition marriage is now mostly a Big Gay Wedding Party, with a short period of cohabitation followed by divorce. Husbands and wives are mutually disposable, though there’s some evidence to suggest that most divorces are initiated by women.
What this suggests is the following fairly MASSIVE social shift:
1. Most women having little direct interest in the well-being of men as husbands or sons.
2. A constantly churning sexual market putting emphasis on short-term goal seeking.
4 Highly volatile personal relationships causing in particular women who have different risk profiles than men to seek “security” through politics.
5. A general closing off of entrepreneurial outlets for men to achieve status/power/wealth and thus success in the mating market, and a shift towards a more “political” model where patronage is dispensed through various “Big Men.”
If you are a young or youngish woman, you find security through what amounts to TOTAL POLITICAL CONTROL of both personal lives and economic ones, since you have the votes in alliance with Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, and SWPL Yuppies.
If you are a young or youngish man, of the SWPL Yuppie Class, you find your best opportunities to be in working the system in what amounts to a “courtier” in the various patronage systems that are designed most of all to keep young men of working/middle class backgrounds OUT. Thus reducing potential sexual market competitors, and compensating for reduced payouts for “big risks” of the kind Wretchard detailed in the link about the young soldiers taking life-death responsibility in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama won 52% of the vote. That’s a majority. He won it with the near uniform support (98%) of Blacks and huge numbers of Hispanics (not much change there from Kerry). What made the difference was the women’s vote, which handed Obama AND DEMS the Presidency and uncontested control of Congress.
Women lead mostly churning personal lives filled with endless drama, the inevitable outcome of short-term mating markets extended well into the thirties. They seek control, stability, a “zero risk” social/political/economic environment. Most SWPL Young and youngish men seek the same, even though they have higher risk profiles, because it keeps out male competitors.
There is enough of these in alliance with Black, Hipsnic, and Gay demographic slices to provide an absolute majority. Not an overwhelming one, 48% rejected Obama. But enough.
It is my view that this electoral alliance will NOT be broken by ANYTHING other than deep impoverishment of men out of the SWPL Male Yuppie class. The advantages and they are real, to women are too deep and their lives so radically different from their mothers that even the nuking of NYC and DC and Boston would not move them. Since they would lose so much control, internal power, perceived stability.
The most dangerous risk for Obama and Dems is lots of young and youngish men who were Ipod and Iphone carrying yuppies, being downsized out of jobs while their female peers remain (80% of all layoffs are men) due to Affirmative Action, and no return to status. Men won’t go from Jerry Seinfeld to George Costanza without a big fight, and that might be just enough to tip from 52-48 to 48-52, in a closely divided nation.
cold water file 1: qwerty top line also “we quit our property”
cold water file 2: habu/46 hey hoo yoo trine foo ?
A more boiled down answer to why it’s the Government’s role to decide outside of Bankruptcy Court who wins and who loses is that the “winners” of the social competition for power control the one and not totally the other.
Power is a zero-sum game, if someone has some power, that means someone else has less. ALL groups seek to maximize their power and minimize that of competitors. ALL of them.
Obama’s groups won, and therefore seek to maximize power. This will NEVER STOP until and unless Obama AND HIS SUPPORTERS are pushed out of power. Shrug. It’s that straightforward.
In my local paper from May 1, buried in the back pages of the business section, was an AP article with this headline, over photos of Obama and the UAW’s Gettelfinger: “Would you buy stock from these guys?”
General Motors was once an investor favorite. Its stock paid a fat dividend and its bonds were a safe haven. But now with GM about to become a joint venture between the federal government and the United Auto Workers union, investors might want to look away. Actually, they might want to run away. “Miracles would have to happen,” as Brett Hoselton of Key-Banc Capital Markets puts it, to make this “new” GM worth investing in.
Indeed, the way that GM is treating its current bondholders suggests that the union and the government have other priorities than doing what’s good for investors. Say you now hold a GM bond worth $200,000. The government is “offering” to give eighty percent of the face value of your bond to the UAW while giving you 45,000 shares of stock. At the same time, they’re offering stock to enough other people to dilute the value of those shares to about 10 cents on the dollar, or $4,500. And by owning stock rather than bonds, you end up further back in line for repayment in case of bankruptcy. Those hardball tactics toward investors should make even those who believe that a small, lean and profitable GM will eventually emerge from the mess think twice.
Obama and his wrecking crew are fixing it so that capitalists no longer have any incentive at all to engage in capitalist activity.
Incentive? pretty soon it’ll be to drop out in the 8th grade and lay around the pool hall waiting on the checks. When that pays as well as work, why work?
I’ve got it figured out that it was Mormon polygamy that caused them to be so aggressive as to invade Utah. This switcharoo over to the current monogamy is just a ruse, to fool us rubes, whilst they catch their breath, and rearm.
100 Days of Devastatingly Swift Success
President Obama is the strongest domestic Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson. His ability to get Democrats in Congress to give him things that undermine their own power is impressive.
In just 100 days, President Obama has been devastatingly effective in moving forward swiftly the most radical, government-expanding agenda in American history.
Successfully Moving to a European Model of Government Control…
Will the Future Bring Change We Can Believe In? Or a Change in What we Believe?
As for us, the “success” of the first 100 days of the Obama presidency raises a threatening possibility.
As my daughter and columnist Jackie Cushman put it, if we’re not careful, instead of change we can believe in, we’re going to have change in what we believe.
It’s something to ponder for the next 1,361 days.
Newt Gingrich
it goes against our inner core, what is being thrust upon us…
it was Jefferson that wrote:
“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.”
as obama leads us towards enlightenment as quasi-europeans, our constitution becomes but a piece of paper…
…the bare-fisted reality of a Chicago machine creation running the show has, not surprisingly, but rather frightingly, shown how easily dubious types can derail the system when not properly scrutinized…
…as hindsight from the financial meltdown has taught us that adherance to financial principles might’ve saved us from what adherance to financial law has not, the current predicament we find ourselves in points to a couple of critical flaws:
1) the man in charge is in fact a crony; albeit an intelligent and articulate (when he’s on the teleprompter – other wise prone to double-speak)
2) most are not aware of the numerous entanglements that may affect his decision making
3) the current state of the MSM is not about to help uncover or enlighten the general public about these conflicts of interest / less than upright behaviors
so, what to do?
1) start working to point out his beneficiaries; (inevitably, as with all corruption, there will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back as far as public tolerance)
2) not sure how this one’s going to work; but, a system needs to be built so that financial relationships, root and tree are registered and tracked, so that ramifications are more apparent (this would help with financial meltdown too – see derivatives, exposure, etc.)
3) maybe the blogosphere will track improprieties until americans wake up and start smelling something rotten in the WH…at which point the case against the MSM may be so compelling and the likelihood of B.O.’s agenda being scuttled, that they decide to start reporting in order to save their own hides!
the outcome is still up in the air – will american individualism and libertarian bent be bred out?
the idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness supplanted with dictats, regulation and cradle to grave security?
whiskey/55
I understand what you are saying. But your scenario presumes linear extrapolation.
There is a difference between urban and flyover areas. You note the urban area trend. But at some point the competition between females would become rather fierce with diminishing economic situation, and young ladies would start dropping out ,seeking something else. It ain’t no sisterhood out there. A return to more traditional roles would slowly reverse the trend.
There is also another factor–one of European countries may become Islamized, with turning from a liberal democracy into burkaized theocracy. It is possible that the dots would be connected and young women would realize that if the young men are out of the picture, something may come to replace them–like old goats looking for harem expansion. Of course, they would not be inclined to seek the emasculated metrosexuals, but rather rugged country types with defense patterns still present.
The Vision of the Annointed,now brought to you by the
Wet behind Ears Team –
Two Pencilnecks with no Real World Experience.
—
Starling said:
“Today I decided to do a little back-of-the-envelope research on the leadership and executive experience of the 44 US presidents. I examined the Wikipedia pages for all US presidents and found something rather remarkable. All but one of the 43 presidents prior to Obama has either
(1) served in the military, the large majority as officers of some rank
(2) have been a governor of a US state or territory or
(3) served as a secretary or asst. secretary of a major government agency, e.g. State, Defense/War, Commerce, etc. In addition many have had other high level executive experience, e.g. president of a college, big city mayor, and businessman. The only president without any of these three on his resume is John Adams, a founding father whose accomplishments include first vice president, second president, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Obama is the only other president who has held none of these three key posts–and nothing even remotely like them. I think this fact tells us something important not only about the man and his priorities, but also about his leadership style and acumen (or lack thereof).”
“Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner looks on as President Barack Obama makes remarks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 23,2009, after meeting with representatives of the credit card industry” !!!
If guy X over there can’t get justice from the courts why should I think I can? If they can change the terms of contracts for political reasons today why should I, or anyone else for that matter, put money into a bond tomorrow?
Our economy is largely built on trust and that is what is under attack. They may get by with it today but what of tomorrow? What happens when favored groups are universally shunned due to the political risk?
Two by:
How ’bout a rundown on the effect of single female Czech ex-pats?
After the Great Recession – An Interview With President Obama -
Deep Thoughts
whiskey/55 cont’d…
There is a historical parallel of sorts, ancient Crete. The women took essentially over the power structure, with figurehead king and men were sent on ships to trade, conquer or to keep a defense perimeter–just out of the way. Only some males were kept as breeders on the island. When the catastrophe hit in about 1500BC (Santorin event), most of the Cretan men out in the sea perished. It did not take long and the Dorian warriors told the Cretan women what they think is their proper place. And that was the end of the Minoan gynocratic civilization.
There were a few other matriarchal societies on the mainland at the time (mythoized as Amazons). They all became a snack for Dorian Greeks.
30. novanglus:
For Bosch, the thing that stuck me most was that Heaven is on the left and is empty, except for Jesus, Adam, and Eve. I remember when being lefthanded was a mark of evil, how ironic. But that a land of peace existed but once and no one has since been admitted. On the right is hell, well populated, dark, and chaotic – the future we face, unless we focus on the larger, central depiction of Earthly delights, a land of joyous fun, a land of plenty where pleasure reigns.
………………
The only guy I know who can write a line like this — ” On the right is hell, well populated, dark, and chaotic – the future we face, unless we focus on the larger, central depiction of Earthly delights, a land of joyous fun, a land of plenty where pleasure reigns.” is Charles (Purple) Hayes.
Is that you Charles Hayes?
Doug/66
Don’t know any Czech expat females beside my first wife (my age group) and she went back to the old country, so can’t give you a rundown. But do know some Russian and Chinese women (25-40) and they prefer more traditional roles. They consider feminism in its current form as a self-destructive and deranged creed.
38. Lifeofthemind:
ARPA-E is another boondoggle factory in the making.
…………..
Might be all obama’s science stuff will fail in execution. I’m just saying that obama has outlined a plausible scenario for success. (success is defined here as rebuilding the US capital base by getting the US off dependence on foreign energy.) He would want that. Because if his stuff fails then all the policies that the dems are about to instutionalize for the purpose of cementing their power for a couple decades will come to nothing.
buddy/57
Well, the welfare checks are only temporary. Bait and Switch. May last few years, but then it will be over. The “Right to Work” may be enacted. In reality, it would be a duty to work according to the state needs. “Parasites” won’t be tolerated. (Of course, people would pretend they are working and government would pretend they are paying them, but that is another story).
Society would stratify into working class and ruling class (plus some contingent of enforcer types). There won’t be any interest from the ruling class to support anyone idling about when the elite can keep the proceeds of the worker’s labor to themselves. That is the final phase of redistribution, to get everything under their control–the means of productions and the proceeds from it.
Charles/70:
No, sir. I am not. In fact, I don’t even know to whom you are referring. Now I am curious. Links?
Tofim Denisovich Lysenko was a horticultural “scientist” who gained the favor of Stalin in the 1920′s & 1930′s. The guy was an ardent believer in the evolutionary theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. (Here’s the gist of the theory: During their lifetimes organisms can enhance selected features of their own forms by their preferences, strivings, exercise, and then pass along the resulting adaptations to their offspring.)
There was wide-spread famine caused by the disruption to Soviet agriculture in the years after Stalin murdered millions of Kulaks to impose collectivized farm on Ukrainian agricultural communities.
Lysenko proposed programs to enhance productivity. The natural fruitfulness of wheat compensated for the stupidity of Lysenko’s doctrinaire ideas long enough to convince Stalin he was a genius. In time his theories of environmentally acquired inheritance were imposed as dogma in universities and ministries. To argue against them cost many excellent scientists their careers, some their freedom, a few their lives. This continued well into the 1960′s.
Think about how much the Soviet system crippled itself just by maintaining this ONE open running sore lasting over many decades.
The coercive imposition of political dogma is here for us right now.
Here’s my point: Stalin showed anyone with eyes open that a country can sacrifice a third of its population and still triumph in a war of ruthless slaughter. Stalin was busy murdering tens of millions soviet citizens through the 20′s and 30′s, to bully the rest of the country into collectivization. In the1930′s he got paranoid about the Red Army, and started a purge of the most effective and brilliant of his officer corps. THIRTY THOUSAND officers accused, denounced and convicted in show trials, imprisoned, shot, hanged, tortured, sent to the gulags. Hitler’s Wehrmacht killed as many Russian FIRST LIEUTENANTS as the total of all officers lost by all the other allied countries combined.
The political leaders of our nation (and not just the elected ones) now refuse to acknowledge external enemies. Instead they appear to be far more focussed on suppressing domestic opposition.
People who have studied the methods of modern tyrants have lots of historical evidence that a brutal elite can maintain themselves in power for many decades, simply using their own people as fodder for the system.
Human resources, indeed.
Wrichard writes: “Which means that for Barack Obama to favor one set of creditors ignores the fact that what they receive in one form they may have to pay for in another. It’s like giving you a “free gift” from money taken from your own pocket or charged to your credit card.”
Or like giving me a ‘tax-cut’ this year while adding that amount to my part (and kids’ part) of the national mortgage for me to pay off until the trump of doom.
“If Stalin only knew”
Solzhenitsyn writes of prisoners weeping at the News of Stalin’s death.
When it was announced that Chrysler had until April 30th to make the deal with its creditors, with the UAW, and with FIAT or else face bankruptcy I wondered what that bankruptcy would look like.
On April 29th I watched the press conference from the White House where Obama said he’d been pessimistic about Chrysler but now he had come around to a more positive view. But then the very next day Chrysler filed for bankruptcy. That’s cognitive disconnect number one.
Now I look at the bankruptcy proceedings and it is a circus. It looks like no bankruptcy proceeding I’ve ever seen before. I can’t tell who is in charge, the executive branch or the judicial branch. In court there should only be one arbiter not two, and the arbitration should rest on settled law not people winging it. So, here’s cognitive disconnect number two.
Fiat will be given Chrysler anyway – did Fiat know this before? What motivation did Fiat have NOT to hold out until April 30th? The bondholders are getting raped as it seems their secured debts are being simply re-defined. This violates contratual principles inherent in the US Constitution. Cognitive disconnect number three.
All this really is amazing to behold, and yes, the well of public trust is indeed poisoned in this affair. It is lawlessness and chaos. As an investor I will most certainly steer clear of placing my money in any concern likely to fall prey to this White House. That means all US banks of significant size, and all US industrial concerns especially ones that have union contracts.
I can’t believe its come to this and I hate to take this position; but I don’t want to take a haircut.
“This isn’t about economics. It’s about politics. And that doesn’t have to make sense. But what do you think?”
I think that politics has to make economic sense in the long run or the Prince and his supporters will be replace either by his polity or his neighbor’s. Obama has promised to change it and rearrange it and that he is doing. I think he has mistaken how far his mandate extends and has little grasp of either history or economics. The late Bill Buckley famously said he would rather be governed by the first three hundred names in the Boston telephone book than by the Faculty of Harvard University. I’d go him one better and say I’d trust the devil with the disposition of my eternal soul before I’d trust the Harvard Law faculty with the legal education of a bankruptcy judge.
We are now bound to live in interesting times for “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind…”
Biden’s prediction: Obambi to be tested…
Pakistan continues to unravel.
Islamabad has no counter to the Shadow Army.
Loose nukes are right around the corner. The bulk of Pakistan’s nuclear assets are in Attok — more or less directly west of the capital.
The loss of this area would close the Khyber at the same time.
More and more it looks like the ISI-Mafia is going to take over the country in the manner of Putin & Co.
But who is dominant? The Putin-Mafia? The SCO-Tong?
I’d like to point out that I buy and drive outstanding automobiles made by Ford Motor Company. In the beginning I drove Chevrolets, also outstanding cars, but switched over to Fords when Chevy quit making Camaros.
Now, I’ve always been a rock-ribbed conservative American patriot and would never consider buying a foreign car at any price. For my entire life I have been arguing against the business environment faced by the Big Three, which is essentially the New Deal labor model. It’s one I’ve always hated given the adversarial nature of management vs. unions. It builds in high fixed costs; it crowds the bottom line, which hurts innovation and limits product range; it creates an adversarial environemnt on the plant floor that is detrimental to quality; etc.
I’ve railed against liberals and Democrats when I’ve found them in foreign cars, which is a lot. Ford/Chevy land was never Manhattan or Berkeley, but always out in the sticks. I don’t have the numeric breakdowns and I’ve never seen them regarding ideological connection to the ride you drive, but I’d bet you more liberals and Democrats are driving foreign cars than conservatives. I don’t know of a lib personally who hasn’t expressed anything but categorical hatred for the Big Three who are, in their mind, symbolic of the great evils of corporate America. They’ve been like Naderites on GM for years.
I explain to them that if they really believed what they say about American blue collar workers, about the benefits of unionism, about generous worker compensations and living wages, then they have no business in a Prius.
But now this inevitable day has come when the New Deal labor model imposed on our manufacturers has imploded them. They, who sing of its praises while driving away in Honda, are going to make sure it stays firmly in place instead of fixing the problem and freeing the capital.
Hypocrites.
Cowboy/78:
I too stand agape watching what is unfolding. If you are not sufficiently fearful, read Peikoff’s “The Ominous Parallels”. Paranoid? I am not so sure. The Reich philosophy was based on cognitive dissonance and distancing itself from Aristotelean logic in favor of a Romantic Kantian/Hegelian worldview. As others have mentioned, at least two generations of Americans have been polluted with this nonsense and the results are observable in the younger generation voting for their rock star Obama, the post turtle.
My 401k had taken enough of a hit in September 2008, that I immediately dumped my equities and got into bonds and commodities. I’ve earned back about half of what I lost to that point. I have now bet against the market, shorting the Dow and Financials. The last week I have watched them both inch further upward on very low volumes (50-75% of 10 day moving average). The current run is unsustainable, nothing material has changed – only ‘confidence’ has come back into the market. But that confidence is buttressed by a pack of lies – Geithner says 10 days ago that “the vast majority of the banks tested are well capitalized”. B.S. Now the stress tests results are being postponed while the banks “negotiate” the results with Treasury. WTF? I think this roller coaster is at a peak and ready for another downdraft. If I am right, I ought to do well. I will then take my proceeds and put them all in on commodities. Only real assets from hear on out. No one has confidence to invest in anything but real assets – real estate excluded for another year. Can’t decide whether to buy in TX or NH – not sure which will secede first! Commodities are at a historical trough. If they rise fast enough and far enough, I just may pull it all out, pay the penalty for early withdrawal, convert it to gold and silver and start gulching. Never thought I’d live in such times.
74. novanglus:
Charles Hayes was an old pal of mine 20 years ago in my NYC days.
Up until the mid 19th century much of christendom believed that the only way to get to heaven was through Jesus: ie the only way to the Father is through the Son. The Germans especially abandoned christianity beginning in 1850′s for a 3rd century heresy called arianism which held that jesus was just a man: a wise and good man, a great prophet etc.–but still, just a man. Bosch was working in a time when this heresy was just being worked through.
Now europe is almost wholy atheist except for a greatly reduced catholic church and some very small evangelical churches. The USA is a half century behind. (The tide has not turned though I think it will.)
We live in what’s known as a post modern era. That is mainstream culture is post modern. (Bosch lived in what has since been called the modern era.) What is post modern. imho its polytheistic pagan. the glory days of mere atheism have passed.
Here’s a book written by Charles Hayes 8 years or so after I left town.
Novanglus, please make it TX. We’ll need the smart & hardy sort –we’re not gonna be a very big nation up against the Federal Saturn Eating His Young.
Where in TX, buddy? Aren’t you guys already significantly awash in illegals?
Mighty insensitive of you, Triton:
Buddy IS an undocumented resident.
no, triton –we’re not. This is hard to ‘splain, but the anglos here understand the 19th century like it’s today –understand it better than today in some cases (blush). we’ve been under six flags, the 1836 war was over the 1928 Constitution of mexico, which santa anna was doing the obama on. Anyhoo long/short, texas has a whole different thing goin’ than the other border states –this is one reason we lost the 2006 elections of course –Bush couldn’t unmangle his syntax long enough to get it across –but the meskins were here firstist, they made room for anglos and together we (they) slung off Santa Anna and the Comanche and the yankees and then the carpetbaggers after the confedracy had messed of over’t virginny. Anyhho, old old old terxas latino families are strung out thru no fault of their own –actually despite their efforts –on both sides of the border, which is a walk-across river most of the time most of the way. there are no encroachers here, in peoples’ hearts. I shall now duck the coming slings annd arrows of outfageous rortune ‘splainin’ to me otherwise. yes, i know the stats, and the new sh*t goin’ on –i’m talking about the foundational social structure, not the recent PoMo era wailing and gnashing and crime –which is of course naruralmont deplorable and needs to be fought all the way.
As far as room, take a look at Alpine, Texas. Just look on the web. It will blow your mind.
west texas counties are as big as small states and THERE’s NOBODY there –search real estate prices in Brewster County –or any of ‘em west of San Antonio.
(sorry ab/ typos above–)
And Texas has a Castle Doctrine going for it.
In my current state of unemployment, Texas is looking better and better as a place to find a job in. Future investments will be in real estate and ammo, not stocks and bonds. I want a place where I can have enough room to grow the food I need.
West texas, Robo –$200/acre, not much rainfall but yoiu can durn sure water a family garden and keep the usual barnyard livestocks. Plus, Texas loves hard-headed, stubborn, eccentrics. if you’re ‘going gulch’, you want that, plus temperate weather, i’d think.
I’ll check out Alpine – I’ve got friends in the Houston, Beaumont & Evadale areas, but that’s a bit too much hurricane alley for me… did that already growing up in south GA.
Charles 83/84:
I spent my college years in NYC in the early/mid 80′s, but by the time I was 20 I lost interest in the various forms of reality distortion, except for a nicely crafted beer or a fine whiskey or single malt. Never touched the acid that Mr. Hayes references in his writings. I remember during freshman orientation, a bunch of guys decided to do acid and walk through Central Park, About 2 hrs later, a few returned and dumped one of them in my room. He was having a bad trip and needed someone to calm him down. I spent about three hours with him, trying to keep him spinning out of control. It’s something I think of whenever I have to talk to my liberal neighbors here in my New England Blue State – nothing you say can keep them focused on a linear, methodical, reasoned line of thinking. Anyway, thanks for the link – looks like some interesting stories, but I came away with the same feeling I had at 20 years old. Recreational drugs are a waste of time and energy. Crap, I won’t even take “regular” drugs now, beyond the occassional aspirin.
WRT post modernism. I remember a NYT article on the front of the living section circa 1983. It was about the return of the mini-skirt, of which I am a huge fan (when applied appropriately). The title of the article was “Post-Post-Modern New Mobile Minimalism”……heh! it’s archived here.
buddy/85
I may just hedge my bets and find a piece of each. Used to spend my summers with my grandparents in NH (“Live Free or Die”) on their 400 acres of swamp and woodland. The property is no longer in the family, since my aunts and uncles wanted the dinero to divide instead of land and a house to maintain. I checked on Google Maps and it’s still there and undeveloped. Wonder if it’s for sale.
I haven’t spent much time in TX, beyond a few weeks of consulting and the occasional business meeting. Been buying myself boots for the past three years. They help protect my shins when we go out to dinner. Invariably, my wife feels compelled to kick me under the table when I say something that makes Rush Limbaugh sound like a radical lesbian feminist compared to me. I think I’d miss the ocean, if I moved to TX, unless I committed to living in the hurricane zone. Then again, if things go bad that’s a concession I won’t mind making. Looks like I could have enough land to have my own shooting range, maybe a sporting clays course. Where I live now, there’s an ordinance against discharging a firearm in the town. So, you can lawfully defend your home, but you will still be slapped with a $90 fine. Small price, but more evidence of the liberal tendency for cognitive dissonance.
If you are a young or youngish woman, you find security through what amounts to TOTAL POLITICAL CONTROL of both personal lives and economic ones
I think you don’t go far enough in your analysis. Why form mutual and voluntary alliances with men when you can vote to steal from them via the tax and child support systems? There’s a reason there’s no men’s magazine called “Self” or “For Men First”.
Is there any chance that the GM deal can be blocked? Seeing what the bondholders are doing at Chrysler may give GM’s bondholders the impetus to stop it.
81 Cowboy:Ford/Chevy land was never Manhattan or Berkeley, but always out in the sticks.
Back from a visit to SoCal, where I noticed the dearth of FoMoCo, GM and ChryCo product. Maybe 1 or 2 in ten were Big Three products.
I don’t know of any liberal I know that doesn’t tout the earth saving values of the Prius, but can’t explain anything about ROI without a government subsidy to make price competitive and insignificant CO2 reduction at significant cost in resources used, ignoring all facts about battery disposal and replacement costs. They just *know* it is *good* because someone says it is *green*. They don’t need any facts….
tom
bob smith/95; yes –due to, the crucial diff is w/ GM, there’s no TARP banks involved. All implied cynicism meant.