A tragic thing. Over all these years of desert war, none of us has ever thought to remind our American government that spending young blood and vast treasure in the Middle East was merely another stupid attempt to police religious wars and tribal spats of 1,500 years standing.
Perhaps our leaders in Washington might re-deliver their inspirational Arab Spring speeches of a couple years back. Just, you know, to make certain we don't lose confidence in their wisdom and foresight.
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 28, 2014
Out of Africa
Our friend Wouter down in Cape Town offers as cogent a take on World War 1 in 300 words or less as you are likely to find anywhere. Besides, if you click his link "gun" you'll get nice little assortment of vintage eye candy in various calibers.
Jun 25, 2014
No, it is economics where truth is the first casualty
Here's a good place to expose the fairy tale tellers such as Janet Yellin, Barack Obama, and most every politician and professional economist in thrall to government in one way or another.
It is a daily Wall Street Journal feature reporting cash prices for about every basic item that folks buy and sell. They are not futures, not speculation about what a thing might be worth next month; they are cash-on-the-barrel-head wholesale prices representing actual sales, actual deliveries in return for a handful of Federal Reserve Cartoons.
Edible tallow was 39 cents a pound yesterday, nice white grease the same. Gold bullion at $1324.60 per troy ounce. A nice young chicken carcass, ready for your broiler, was $1.114 a pound.
And to get to life's basic necessities, lead solder traded hands at $1.31 a pound. (Which, for you non-reloaders, is about 7000 grains or roughly 35 200-grain semi-wadcutters for your 1911A1.)
This isn't pure lead. It is some sort of solder alloy, but that is beside the point because it is decidedly leadish and we're interested only in comparing real prices with government fairy tales, the chief of which are its "tame" inflation nonsense and Fed promises that it will continue to regulate its printing presses to max out inflation at 2 per cent.
Back to the WSJ chart. That lead sold one year ago yesterday for $1.22 a pound. Subtract and divide and discover that lead is up 7 per cent in 12 months.
I'm cherry picking only slightly. Grains are down substantially, for instance, but that probably reflects the decline of the ethanol-thug subsidies more than any real market force.
The chicken? Up about 6 per cent. Butter up 56 per cent. And let's not depress ourselves with pork and beef. If you're looking for stability and "affordability," I can recommend only the tallow and grease which are actually a penny or two cheaper over the year. And burlap, down from about 41 cents a yard to 39. Chow down. Get yourself a nice new wardrobe.
Ma Joad, in the box car East of Eden where survival was measured in the ounces of fried dough still possible: We got enough grease for two more days.
Two per cent inflation? It is Grimm, a yarn with all the credibility and integrity of Bush II in 2003, under the Abe Lincoln banner, about Iraq's glorious future as the Peoria of the Middle East: "Mission Accomplished."
It is a daily Wall Street Journal feature reporting cash prices for about every basic item that folks buy and sell. They are not futures, not speculation about what a thing might be worth next month; they are cash-on-the-barrel-head wholesale prices representing actual sales, actual deliveries in return for a handful of Federal Reserve Cartoons.
Edible tallow was 39 cents a pound yesterday, nice white grease the same. Gold bullion at $1324.60 per troy ounce. A nice young chicken carcass, ready for your broiler, was $1.114 a pound.
And to get to life's basic necessities, lead solder traded hands at $1.31 a pound. (Which, for you non-reloaders, is about 7000 grains or roughly 35 200-grain semi-wadcutters for your 1911A1.)
This isn't pure lead. It is some sort of solder alloy, but that is beside the point because it is decidedly leadish and we're interested only in comparing real prices with government fairy tales, the chief of which are its "tame" inflation nonsense and Fed promises that it will continue to regulate its printing presses to max out inflation at 2 per cent.
Back to the WSJ chart. That lead sold one year ago yesterday for $1.22 a pound. Subtract and divide and discover that lead is up 7 per cent in 12 months.
I'm cherry picking only slightly. Grains are down substantially, for instance, but that probably reflects the decline of the ethanol-thug subsidies more than any real market force.
The chicken? Up about 6 per cent. Butter up 56 per cent. And let's not depress ourselves with pork and beef. If you're looking for stability and "affordability," I can recommend only the tallow and grease which are actually a penny or two cheaper over the year. And burlap, down from about 41 cents a yard to 39. Chow down. Get yourself a nice new wardrobe.
Ma Joad, in the box car East of Eden where survival was measured in the ounces of fried dough still possible: We got enough grease for two more days.
Two per cent inflation? It is Grimm, a yarn with all the credibility and integrity of Bush II in 2003, under the Abe Lincoln banner, about Iraq's glorious future as the Peoria of the Middle East: "Mission Accomplished."
Jun 23, 2014
See? Saw
"Hitachi,' I believe, transliterates as "rice hulls with a dragon-shit binder, carefully injection molded." But perhaps I err. Hope so.
The DeWalt 12-inch mitre saw buzzed off after two decades of hard use and nonexistent maintenance. I was sad, but she'd earned her rest after cutting untold thousands of kerfs in everything from from fine cocobolo to junk oak kindling, bark on, at an ownership cost of something like a buck-ten a month.
There was no identical replacement at any of the usual suspect retailers around here, so I hied me to Menards which was advertising an epitcanthicly enhanced $300 version on sale for $200. Wrote the check this morning, hauled her home, plugged her in, and made a few cuts before reading the instruction manual, just to prove my libertarian manhood..
The garish green appears identical to some day-glo sneakers I saw on a girl jogger yesterday, so maybe I'm at last riding the fashion wave.
She works fine and feels okay, even the laser beam that magically predicts the kerf center. I should not like that sort of modernistic gimcrackery. But, dammit, I do.
As to her ultimate place in my affections, ask me in 20 years.
The DeWalt 12-inch mitre saw buzzed off after two decades of hard use and nonexistent maintenance. I was sad, but she'd earned her rest after cutting untold thousands of kerfs in everything from from fine cocobolo to junk oak kindling, bark on, at an ownership cost of something like a buck-ten a month.
There was no identical replacement at any of the usual suspect retailers around here, so I hied me to Menards which was advertising an epitcanthicly enhanced $300 version on sale for $200. Wrote the check this morning, hauled her home, plugged her in, and made a few cuts before reading the instruction manual, just to prove my libertarian manhood..
The garish green appears identical to some day-glo sneakers I saw on a girl jogger yesterday, so maybe I'm at last riding the fashion wave.
She works fine and feels okay, even the laser beam that magically predicts the kerf center. I should not like that sort of modernistic gimcrackery. But, dammit, I do.
As to her ultimate place in my affections, ask me in 20 years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)