The Knave New World

In 2007, Alan Greenspan published a fascinating book that chronicled not only his own life, but the life of the monetary world in which he grew up,  and in which he ultimately played a major role as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

  https://www.amazon.com/Age-Turbulence-Adventures-New-World/dp/0143114166  

Mr. Greenspan’s keen observation of contemporary monetary history is demonstrated throughout the book. On page 92, Alan had this to report about the legendary Reagan tax cuts of the 1980’s:

“The cornerstone of the Reagan tax cuts was a bill that had been proposed by Congressman Jack Kemp and Senator William Roth. It called for a dramatic three-year, 30 percent rollback of taxes on both businesses and individuals and was designed to jolt the economy out of its slump, which was now entering its second year. I (Greenspan) believed that if spending was restrained as much as Reagan proposed, and as long as the Federal Reserve continued to enforce strict control of the money supply, the plan was credible, though it would be a hard sell. This was the consensus of the rest of the economic board as well.

But (David) Stockman (Reagan’s Budget Director) and Don Regan, the incoming treasury secretary, were having doubts. They were leary of the growing federal deficit, already more than $50 billion a year, and they began quietly telling the President he ought to hold off on tax cuts. Instead, they wanted him to try getting Congress to cut spending first, then see whether the resulting savings would allow for tax reductions.”

Well good luck with that!

And gollee, that was about 39 years ago, and about 20 trillion $$ of federal deficit ago. . .

Ronald Reagan, God bless ‘im, was the last of the Mohicans of old-style let’s-try-to-balance-the-budget school.

Yet we still pay lip-service to that principle.

But--let's face it-- those days are gone forever. They went out with with saddle oxfords and gumball machines and  Archie Bunker and 1-cent lollipops and debits on the left with credits on the right that balanced each other out.

Now Reagan, God rest his soul,  is no longer with us, nor Kemp,  and the world is a totally different place. Ronald Reagan was the last of a balancing breed that has vanished into fiscal history.

The cowboy hero has ridden into the sunset.

David Stockman is, however, still with us, and still living in the past,  still harping, God bless ‘im, on old-hat financial and fiscal responsibility. Good luck with that, Dave!

https://www.deepstatedeclassified.com/dsd20190426/

In his most recent newsletter, David Stockman posted this assessment of our present situation:

“The Main Street economy is failing. But the Wall Street fantasy is thriving. You can lay responsibility for this dangerous disconnect at the doorstep of the Eccles Building.

The Federal Reserve’s extreme monetary central planning regime long ago disabled capital markets and destroyed price discovery.

Bubble Finance has euthanized workers and savers and lobotomized traders and speculators.

And our monetary central planners know it.”

While Mr. Stockman’s assessment may very well be true, it may also be irrelevant.

The world . . . as it always does and always has, has changed.

Tap your ruby slippers together, David.

and close your eyes and realize: We’re not in Kansas any more. All the rules have changed. Take off your rose-colored glasses.

We’re not wheelin’ and dealin’ in ole Wall Street any more, or Peoria or Pittsburgh or Palm Springs. Now we are in, as Aldous Huxley once said, a Brave New World. . .

A world in which monetary markets and price discovery are no longer the primary determinants in the money game. . . a world that has, yes Virginia, yes Alice and yes Dorothy, been commandeered by a thunderous consumerist horde who have no wish to be bound by these old financial fuddy-duddy obsolete principles, a world that has been fundamentally transformed by Keyneseian realpolitic and by the pragmatic keep-bailing-this-boat central bankers of the world with their legions of yassah data-crunching technocrats to maintain the welfare of us all.

And we will never go back.

Because money itself is, and always has been, truth be told, worthless, being nothing more than klinky coins that can get you a wad of chewing gum, or paper bills that can get you a sugar-high from a vending machine, or electrons that can get you a charged-up night on the town, or a day in the sun, a week at Disney if you’re lucky, and a health-insured, social-security certified lifetime in this knave new world.

The “Capitalism” of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and Jacob Marley and JP Morgan and even Warren Buffet has . . . gone the way of the buffalo.

Now it’s just benevolent electrons whirling around the world taking care of everybody.

And when you finally see the writing on the wall, Dave, look at those deficits and . . . read ‘em and weep. Nobody cares about deficits any more.

The central bankers of the world will never have to face the music of fiscal responsibility that keeps ringing in your ears.

We’re never going back to the old balancing acts. Where we’re headed is. . . everybody gets a meal-ticket as long as all’s quiet on the Western front and the red sun still rises in the east. Welcome to the knave new world.

Glass half-Full

Ben Carson for HUD head?

Boy born in poverty grows up to be brain surgeon. Say what?

He kept his eyes on the prize, gave steady attention to what is important for his own personal development and advancement; Ben cultivated good habits, studied hard, pulled himself up by bootstraps, climbed the achievement ladder, learned a trade, surgery.

Brain surgery. Brain surgery?

No kidding. He became a brain surgeon, head of neurosurgery at Hopkins; among his many operations was the separation of congenitally conjoined twins. No easy task. The man's a problem-solver.

Later on in life, Ben trained his eyes on expanded horizons, became an advocate for productive self-sustaining endeavor. Disdaining a systemic predisposition toward .gov dependency, he became a classic example of the American self-made man, although he would tell you much credit should be given to his loving, resourceful mother. Furthermore, his dependency was not in .gov programs; rather, his sufficiency was found in God.

Ben moves along well in this life; his eyes are, as they say, on the prize.

So, by n' by, he runs for President. Why not? This is America.

Trump berates him on the campaign trail.

But later, after all the recounted ballots have hit the fan, Trump nominates Ben for head of a federal department, Housing and Urban Development.

Say what?

For a brain surgeon? Why not HHS? Why not Surgeon General?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

But now what do we see? All kinds of protest from the welfare Establishment, elites of housing elevation inside the beltway don't like it one bit. Why?

No experience in the field. No experience in running housing programs.

No experience in federal .gov. No experience in any .gov whatsoever.

What about all the .gov programs he had to get around in order to be a brain surgeon running for Prez?

So here's America wondering, what needs to happen here? What is appropriate experience, resumé, and background for running/reforming a big .gov housing dep't.? Experienced proficiency in running a megalith .gov department?

Or something else, perhaps . . . intelligence, good sense, uncommon ability to apply one's self to daunting tasks, integrity, character, intimate familiarity with problems of poverty, incredibly unique educational accomplishment, persistence, determination, methodical approach to solving problems, an analytical mind, a skilled hand, a precise approach to cutting and mending, a winning smile. . .?

On the point of Ben having no .gov-departmental proficiency, the critics are legion. Their verdict: unqualified, ill-prepared, nothing in resumé to qualify him, he's anti-government, yes-man, uncle tom, blahblahblah.

Now why is this happening? Is there something wrong with Uncle Ben, or is there something wrong with big brutha HUD?

But I ask you this. Has HUD solved, since its inception in 1965, the problem of substandard housing in cities?

Has HUD solved the housing-related problems of poverty in the inner cities?

Uh, no, don't think so.

Could this HUDdish inability to solve the problems of affordable housing indicate, perhaps, the need for a new approach? a new diagnosis, new prognosis? The mood of the nation after this election would suggest: yes.

Ok. Let's take a look.

But an analytical look. Let's step back. Back to basics. Why do we even have a federal government? Why do we have, within that .gov, a Department of Housing and Urban Development?

To answer this question, we look to the Preamble of our Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare . . ."

Welfare? Well golly, our 21st-century image of that bureaucracy-burdened idea is a fact of life in the real world. It is what it is.

But let's promote it--welfare--anyway, because our Constitution says so. Let us go then, amid the noise and haste, and promote our best interests, the welfare of Us the People. But let us do it in in a revisionary way, a way that will permit some necessarily corrective surgery on a bloated, debilitated .gov institution that promotes programs of incentive-destroying dependency.

Let us move forward progressively, proactively, with a plan for overcoming the systemic dependency of HUD. Let us, instead permit, by whatever means can be devised, personal and familial independence, as we find it so boldly declared in our Declaration of Independence:

. . .whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Therefore, I move we allow the man who worked his way out of substandard housing, and ultimately out of poverty, to take charge of a new effort to correctively administrate affordable housing.

Let Ben Carson administrate the Department of Housing and Urban Development.



Glass half-Full

Incentives for Development instead of Dependency

I've been working for the last six years as a maintenance man in an apartment complex that houses 92 households.

You know as well as I do that it is not easy to get up and go to a job five days out of every week that goes by, and to do this week after week, month after month, year after year.

Now for an old guy like me, age 64, while approaching that precipice called "retirement" and considering how/when such an arrangement may take shape, it has been difficult lately.

I've been struggling with a few issues, both public and private, pertaining to this job that has occupied 40 hours of my time every week for the last six years.

The apartment complex in which I maintain all this stuff--toilets, faucets, sinks, drains, light fixtures, electrical outlets, water heaters, doors, windows, cabinets, floors, stairways, interiors, exteriors, dumpsters, trash, smoke-filled rooms. . .this apartment community is a public housing arrangement in which rents are subsidized, according to need and income, through funds that have been provided through taxpayer money.

I confess that one problem I have had lately comes from wondering why I have to do all this work, when many tenants don't seem to have much to occupy their time. I mean, everybody has a TV and that's okay.

I don't really want to elude my responsibilities as an employed person. But I do believe that if there is, among the hundred+ residents here, a good person who is willing to take on some responsibility to do some necessary work. . .that person should be allowed to contribute some of their time and effort toward making the community facilities cleaner and more operative.

But I cannot expect this type of help from tenants.

I am, you know, the employee, while they are the tenants. I am the worker; they are the recipients of my services.

And I have, during previous periods of my life, benefited from some college-level training in education. Accordingly, I would like to take opportunities now and then to teach others, especially children, to do for themselves instead of me the Maintenance guy doing all of it.

A year or two ago, a good thing happened in this complex where I work. A helpful tenant who lives here took it upon himself to help me in cleaning one of our two laundry rooms. I was pleased to have his participation, especially since I have a steady stream of vacancies to deal with--vacancies that require painting, cleaning and repairs. There should be more people in the world who are like this good citizen who has volunteered to help make the community in which he lives, in which I work, a better place.

Nevertheless, I was informed that it was not his place to do so. Because he is, after all, the tenant, while I am the employee.

In other instances during my six years, tenants have been compelled to uproot plants--decorative and vegetable-- that they had planted in the mulched sterile areas around the buildings. Because it was against the rules. Management is supposed to do all that, and make those decisions, etc. And this place is subsidized by the USDA. The A stands for Agriculture. Fed-approved agriculture of course, not tenant-planted agriculture.

I told a friend of mine recently that if I had a million bucks I'd buy the whole dam place and then let the tenants have their own community garden instead of these useless ornamental shrubs and mulch, and I'd turn my maintenance job over to a tenant committee where they could divvy out the work as it arises, and be compensated accordingly with rent credit or benefits or cash.

Well, my struggle with these issues was punctuated this Sunday morning with some other inputs about this type of situation.

I was listening in on Listening In, which is an online audio program that is provided weekly by World Magazine, of which I am a subscriber.

http://www.worldmag.com/player.php?podcast/7467

In this recorded discussion, I heard host Warren Smith interviewing guest Jennifer Marshall, who represents the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity of the Heritage Foundation. They were conducting a fresh discussion about a tired old topic, welfare reform.

Jennifer was explaining the outcome of a recent forum at Heritage, the purpose of which was to help people escape poverty.

She mentioned that the major welfare reform of 1996 had been successful in reducing welfare loads and reducing child poverty. But only one program was dealt with. She further stated what needs to happen is reform of--not just cash welfare program-- but food stamps, public housing and other programs. And then she made this statement:

"The incentives right now are structured toward dependence; let's get them structured toward moving people back to independence, back to flourishing in their communities."

And I thought, she may have a good point there. But I don't know what I could do about it.

Life goes on.

In other news, its a beautiful, sunny day here in the Blue Ridge.

Have a nice day, and a satisfyingly productive week.



Glass half-Full

Couch potatoes, or real food?

Most Americans will not do the hard physical labor required to harvest our nation's crops. But in these days politicians, thinking that they're doing us all a favor, want to meddle with immigration laws that effectively kick out the migrant workers who perform that hard work. But most of us Americans are just not up to the task. Workers just will not do what many of our grandparents did back in the day to get all that food out of the fields, into the supply chain, and into the pantries and bellies of consumers. Here's what has happened in Georgia in the last year or so, after the legislature went trying to meddle with the sensitive dynamics of supply/demand in agricultural labor markets. In a conversation with Neal Conan of Talk of the Nation last Monday 4/30/12, Dick Minor, partner of Minor Produce, Andersonville Ga., and President of Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, said this:

". . . that just anybody can come do this job is also a misnomer. We consider these people skilled workers because they are pretty much professional harvesters, and they're even skilled to particular crops. So people harvesting watermelons may not be able to pick peaches, and people picking blueberries may not be able to pick peppers. So certain crews that work in certain crops, and they do that year-round, as you know it's very tough work. It's very tough conditions - long hours. You've got to be in really good physical shape. You've got to know the process of harvesting crops."

When Neal Conan asked Mr. Minor about using parolees to do the work, the President of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Associations said:

"It hasn't worked out. I was actually one of the test farms that we did that on, and we tried to make it work. It runs into the same problem of using any other domestic workforce: They're just not skilled in the technique to harvest the crop, nor are they physically able to do that work. I mean, you have to imagine being in 100-degree days for 10 hours, and, you know, very physically demanding work, stooping down, running, lifting. You've got to be, sort of, trained, almost like an athlete. You've got to be trained to be able to do it, and we offered open employment to them all summer long, and we had just a constant turnstile of people coming and going. And nobody was excited about doing it. A lot of them did it for several days, but none of them lasted."

The net effect of the legislature's misguided micromanagement of labor markets cost the state of Georgia, in Mr. Minor's estimation, lost revenuers of $140 million, which, when the "multiplier" effect of that money is factored in, amounts to about $390 million. This happened because 40% of workers needed to harvest Georgia's crops in the last year were not there to do the work. The accustomed agricultural pickers did not show up because they were not hired because of bad law, or the workes were afraid of the consequences of showing up and risking deportation. But American couch potatoes wouldn't get out in the fields and gather all those watermelons and peaches and whatnot. In this country, we've traded real potatoes for couch potatoes. This is largely the result of our leisurely lifestyle, and obsession with entertainments, and government welfare that robs workers of incentives to prosper, and just plain old-fashioned laziness. Americans don' know how to work any more. Its no wonder that the corporations sitting on all that funny Federal money are unwilling to take a chance and grant us more employment. CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress