Timbeeerrr

We called this a good Saturday morning's work. The old burr oak on the property line was long dead and leaning over the storage shed and the house.

Choice: Drop several hundred into the pocket of a tree pro or unleash my inner Paul Bunyan.

The latter, of course. Economics aside, neither the other Paul, my neighbor,  nor I concede one damned thing to the woods. If it has leaves we can handle it.

It took an hour to lay her down, also two pickups in 4WD low range, three hundred feet of 5/8 nylon,  a 10-inch  pulley,   plus the usual saws, wedges,and unfortunate language.

The notch  and straight cut were in the right places. We had no trouble pulling her on the hinge to get the new center of gravity  where we wanted it.  Then came the hangups  in the high branches of the nearby trees.  A few more judicious cuts almost  got her falling. This is where the injudicious language came into play, culminated by my stentorian voice at the tree, to Paul in his pickup,  "Hit it. Give that  *X%$(*&@ all you got."   


The 5/8 nylon line instantly  became nearer to 3/8. There was a certain amount of noise as Paul revved his half-ton up to 3500 or so and the object tree tore widow makers from its neighbors on its way to the deck.

I'm actually burning some of the small, high branches this morning. I feel quite smug about it all, knowing that success resulted from clever planning, careful selection of equipment,  and great finesse of execution. There are those who will sniff about brute force and blind luck. I thumb my nose at them.

Speaking of Voodoo Money

All the president's flack men were breathless in announcing the $10 billion deal with India. Bomba will buy airplanes and stuff from us to support about 54,000 U.S. jobs.*

Eureka.

Let's play pretend. Pretend the deals actually occur as advertised. Pretend India actually pays the bill.**  That's $10 billion injected into the national economy.

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On Wednesday, when a majority of us were taking the victory lap and most of the rest were crying in their Chablis, the  Federal Reserve Board launched  "QE2," a barbaric misuse of the English language to denote creating, out of thin air, 600 billion new dollars by buying American government bonds with money that doesn't exist.

If and when  the  the nation of OOHHMMM reaches into the pocket of its bed sheet and forks over our $10 billion in productively earned money, it will represent 1.6 per cent -- one-decimal-six -- of the the $600 billion imaginary greenbacks. Ben and the rest of the Washington monetarist geese see this as shrewd Yankee trading.

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Top of my head, I can identify at least eight or ten objections to my analysis,  and a good Keynes/Samuelson-trained economist will open the action by hollering "Multiplier effect, you moron. Multiplier effect!"

Absolutely. The airplane makers makers of American will collect the Indian cash via their Boeing and GE bosses. They'll take it to the WalMart and buy crap made in China.

I have no immediate  plan to contract something incurable, but if I do I'll be proud to proclaim myself sound as a dollar.

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* Never mind that (a) the deals had been under discussion for months or years and (b) these aren't necessarily new jobs.

** I have dealt with the Third World, up close and personal. Rule One is that if you don't get your money up front, you stand a very good chance of not getting it at all.

A small post about a small story:

Someone mailed three skulls to Brigham Young University. Professors determined they were human skulls from about 1200 AD. The Associated Press informs us:

That fits with the early suspicions of investigators that the skulls might be ancient artifacts.

One is tempted to make some wise crack about multiple layers of vocabulary study, but, out of compassion, I decline.

His Obamaness

I am reading "The Autobiography of William Allen White"  and find it  timely that the Sage of Emporia opens with a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

All that Shakespeare says of a King,  yonder slip of a boy that reads in a corner feels to be true of himself. 

The  Boy Barack strolls Hotel Street, dreaming of being a sailor, then a captain, an admiral, a commander of admirals until that ultimate day when a spray of Rembrandt light engulfs him and all the world chants his name. Adoringly.