A warmup; anarchy; a little light porn for desert rats

Assemble the trumpet chorus of tall vestals in flowing white gowns.  We need to rehearse for the big day tomorrow.

At the coordinates of Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant,  winter is being put to rout. Statistically anyway. On January 19, the average daily high advances. From 25 to 26. Ta da.

As soon as the girls are in good tune, if will come time to unpack my spring fashion ensemble, even to the Speedo in anarchy black.

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Anarchy could be a lot of fun, and I have a soft spot in my heart for anarchists, even somewhat dreamy ones like John Zerzan. The internet persona he projects is one of a nice, very thoughtful,  guy who dead centers some of our post-modernist (what the Hell does that mean? dunno.)  ills.

He's part of the anarcho-primitivist school, yearning for a return to the hunter-gatherer system of economics.That makes him a romanticist Luddite, just like me when my reality connections are a little corroded. In some of my nicer fantasies I battle the sabre-tooth tiger approaching my woman in our cave.  She looks a lot like Kim Novak. I always win.

Philosophically, the dream breaks down the next morning when my clan huddles to plan the death of a nice, juicy, mammoth. Quite naturally, I am the leader -- in 20th Century terms the Minister of Plenty. There goes the egalitarianism that Zerzanites like so much.

There are probably some serious Zerzan students among the readers. I've been only vaguely aware of him and his work, but something  triggered a net wander this morning. I think I'll read more of his stuff. He seems too smart to have fallen completely for the serene glamour of the noble savage, and he makes a decent point or two about the dehumanizing effect of this and that in the digital age.

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Also before I hie myself off to work, I need to pacify my buddy John of the GMA, a commendable man but also a dude always grumping about the aesthetics of my WWCO selections -- most recently Twiggy of London. He wonders why I didn't choose Whatzername. I'll tell you why, Pardner. Because my apology to Bernanke had substance enough only for an A-Cup.  Anything larger would have been a waste of good silk and wire.

But since you insist:

 

Skinny Amends

I keep putting off a moral obligation: apologizing to Ben Bernanke. The tanked United States economy is not totally his fault. He's a tool, a dupe if you will, like some guy who tugs his forelock and says yassah Master when ordered to modify gravity.

The job of the Fed boss for a century has been to palpate the money supply to promote (a) full employment and (b) stable prices.

Ben, like every other Federal Reserve chairman, is too smart to believe that a doable proposition. But, also like his predecessors, he's perfectly willing to play the game in order to be one of the most powerful men in the world, a status which gets a guy invited to all the best parties with super models and single malt. I'd be tempted myself. So consider this a hemi-semi-demi apology, really tiny.

One trouble is that Ben is personally likable and seems so sincere, even when being more than a little dissimulative. For instance:

Last month, hard money hawks (so to speak) finally persuaded him to reduce the  Kwee 3 production of thin-air money a bit -- from $85 billion a month to $75 billion.

He took a deep breath and pronounced that good, but before he could exhale, his inner Keynes leaped forth.

"But don't worry Mr. President and all you vote-buying thugs in Congress. We're still going to be easy, perhaps even easier. So go cheerfully about your business.  Spend away.  Bike trails and ag subsidies and roads to no where;  idiotic billions to political buddies with a solar dream: farting around in the Third World pretending that we know how to build other nations; creating regulations costing ten bucks to administer for every 37 cents in benefits, if that much. Whatever will make the unwashed voter love you." 

(How? HIs Fed promises to keep fiat money gushing by some level of Kweeing, plus interest rates effectively zero for a long, long time -- probably through the first Chelsea administration, at least.)

Would it help if more of us became a little more focused  on Econ 101 as presented by someone other than Paul Samuelson?

Price stability depends on many things, but above all on money stability; that is,  a person should have reasonable confidence that the five-dollar bill in his pocket today will also buy a pound of bacon next year. Lacking that belief, he'll go immediately to Starbucks and piss it away while studying food stamp eligibility rules on his G4 phone.

Full employment depends on a population making, buying, and selling things. Their ability to do so depends in large part on greedy capitalists who somehow get some money and gamble it on factories, drug stores, farms, distilleries, and gas stations. Every man and woman in the mix must have an ordinarily decent character and diligence -- plus an expectation that his wages and profits as measured in money will hold their value, or nearly so.

Excessive taxes discourage that sort of diligence and willingness to take risks, but  currency inflation can make confiscatory taxes seem like a comparative angel kiss.

Ben won't publicly address basics like that, but, as I say, the perks of being a perceived Midas are compelling, so on a strictly personal level, I understand, Sir. Therefore I formally offer my apology for five years of verbally abusing you, an apology heart felt but so wee and flat as to be almost imperceptible.

Wet your kangaroo down, Sport.

Mad dogs and Englishmen founded Australia and  taught it everything it knows. So the Melbourne Aussies  (probably with great enthusiasm from their tourist bureau) decided to have a big tennis tournament in January, the depth of summer down there.

Givens: Tennis is a hot sport. Melbourne is a hot town in January -- about the same equatorial displacement as St. Louis. People who schedule made-for-teevee tennis extravaganzas should understand those things. So should  the players and spectators.

And, to get to the point,  you would expect the same from world famous reporting heads in the electric teevee news industry. You would be disappointed.  They are so agog with Melbourne weather that they're making it about the second or third lede on their programs about all the vital news this morning.

If it weren't for Justin Bieber getting busted for throwing eggs, Melbourne would be first or second on the lineup.

Out Out, Damned Nips

Nothing good can come of this. Our brothers of the Rising Sun buying Jim Beam? If I know those guys, and I think I do, they won't even sugar coat this barbaric act of imperialism with a decent geisha house in Clermont, Kentucky.

Please don't think me racist, at least not in this case. After all, I did not protest the Jap purchase of Pebble Beach 24 years ago. What's a goddam golf course between allies, anyway? (I was, however, vaguely pleased when Clint Eastwood bought it back for us.)

But Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey -- American since 1795 --  under the thumb of the guys who make Suntory whiskey, a liquid some people actually drink but which achieves its highest and best purpose as a surface cleaner and disinfectant? Sacrilege. Un-American. Yet another reason to rise up in revolt against the Obama foreign trade policy. Gives me a pain in the sakirilliac.

We can't overpraise Jim Beam, here. It's a justifiable few cents a shot cheaper than Jack  and Turkey and Makers but still a pleasant-enough flavoring for Coke, RC, and Dr. Pepper.  And it's American. Middle American. Blue collar tattoo Levis and Harley American. To arms! God knows what will happen to it when Osaka gets around to experimenting with additives of rice squeezings.

We must stop selling them scrap metal and embargo all shipments of...

Oh Hell. Shut up, Jim. You're too late. The deal is done. It all  Akadamac now.