Acceleration

cfdxprt just had to invoke the Mogambo, didn't he? Coincidentally, the Mighty One mentions the same article on inflation I hit on last week (he being a weekly* publication), and after reading him tonight, I realized I had not done a good "sky is falling" post in a while. Maybe I never have unless you like that sort of thing. But anyway.

I mentioned something about 2 years ago which I think we are seeing again, but rather than in one place, it's all over every place:

If there's one word that describes the current government fiscal situation it's "acceleration." The problem is not simply that debt is increasing (though that IS a problem) but that it is increasing at an increasing rate. As El Presidente finds more and more critical problems at which to throw borrowed and newly-printed money, the fiscal condition of the US spins, frankly, out of control.

Gold crossed $800 an ounce today (up 10% in 3 weeks), and if you click over to Mogambo and take a look at the yearly chart, you'll see the same thing you see on the debt chart at the above post, acceleration. Oil finally crossed my nightmare threshold of 90 a week ago. Tonight it's trading above $95. The monthly chart going back to 1999 shows not just a rise, but acceleration. The dollar chart above needs little** explanation as I've contused that supine equine enough. But look at the moving averages (those three colored lines that move together), they show acceleration.

It was only last freaking month that I wrote this:

But stocks up or stocks down, here are the important numbers of the day: The dollar chart...is again within half of 1% of the line-in-the-sand at 80, gold is up $15 to near $700, Oil is up $1 to $76, just off its all-time high.

In those few weeks the dollar has fallen to 76, gold is up $100, oil up $20. Acceleration.

Some months ago, a fellow I don't know (and who never returned) asked in the comments, "When?" When is this going to happen? When is the sky going to fall? All you bears, everything you say was said before yet here we are. And I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now except for this:

I've had three SHTF tests for better than a decade, and I have mentioned all of them here as long as I've had a blog. Two of them I mentioned last in July:

80 has always held. Maybe it will hold again. So long as oil does not cross $90, I don't think we are close to panic time.

Both of those lines are now crossed. The third test is gold closing above its all-time high. To be honest, I always that that the most inevitable and that it would be first. It's not yet. We have about 10% to go, the amount of ground we covered this month alone.

The Fed lowered rates again today. That's dollar-negative, it drives people out of dollars (lower rates means less reward for owning them). That will accelerate the dollar's fall*** and gold's and oil's rise. They had no choice: being a political creature they have to do what they can to delay the pain. And they will do more, much more.

I don't think we are in panic time, but we are closer to panic time than we were a month ago. Much closer. The bad numbers are increasing at an increasing rate. Debt: accelerating. Dollar drop: accelerating. Oil price: accelerating. Gold: accelerating. Retirees: accelerating. Mortgage lender bankruptcies: well, that would be accelerating if the market still existed. The house price drop will begin accelerating very soon, replacing the "wealth effect" with an offsetting "poverty effect."

So when? When do we get to live through a period we will preface with "The Great" and speak of to our grandchildren only in hushed tones?

Too soon for too many. Save your nickels.

* As opposed to my "weakly" by comparison, which is why I don't spend my weekends being flown all over the world to tell investors that WE'RE ALL FREAKING DOOMED(tm) like Mogambo.

** For those who like footnotes, I will just mention that 80 on that chart has been a floor going back as long as there have been free-floating currencies; we are now 4-5% below that.That said, in all fairness, like the Dow (and the CPI), the Dollar Index does not mean the same thing over time, because items are constantly substituted. But lines often measure sentiment as much as anything, and every nation that has dollars (and there are a lot of them with a lot of dollars) knows that 80 has always held. Until now.

*** Though I do suspect (but would never bet) we may get one more monster rally that could last for months and take us up 10-15% - with everyone this negative, it's a perfect time to burn the shorts.

Pluck Yew

A bit of historical trivia arrives via email:

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew! Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute! It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."

IT IS STILL AN APPROPRIATE SALUTE TO THE FRENCH TODAY!

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.

As is often the case, the truth is both more obscure and less interesting. Cecil Adams did a pretty good piece on it a few years back, tracing the finger to the Romans* and Greeks**.

But it may actually be older than that. Since we've spent so much time taking bible verses out of context here recently, I have another one, this one from circa 700bc:

"Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, 'Here I am.' If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity... the LORD shall guide thee continually..." - Isa 58:9,11

But that one might be just a bit speculative, I'll admit...

* Suetonius mentions that one of the reasons Gaius Caligula was murdered was that he gave his officers the finger:

When they had decided to attempt his life at the exhibition of the Palatine games, as he went out at noon, Cassius Chaerea, tribune of a cohort of the praetorian guard, claimed for himself the principal part; for Gaius used to taunt him, a man already well on in years, with voluptuousness and effeminacy by every form of insult. When he asked for the watch word Gaius would give him "Priapus" or "Venus," and when Chaerea had occasion to thank him for anything, he would hold out his hand to kiss, forming and moving it in an obscene fashion.

Flipping off men with swords is still a pretty poor idea.

** One edition of the Satyricon explains the gesture this way:

"If anyone calls you a catamite, Sextillus," says Martial, ii, 28, "return the compliment and hold out your middle finger to him." According to Ramiresius, this custom was still common in the Spain of his day (1600), and it still persists in Spanish and Italian countries, as well as in their colonies. This position of the fingers was supposed to represent the buttocks with a priapus inserted up the fundament; it was called "Iliga," by the Spaniards. From this comes the ancient custom of suspending little priapi from boys' necks to avert the evil eye.

Give me a pointy hat, too

TOUT-TV makes an amazing discovery:

So you scrapped your costly European vacation on account of the weak dollar. You did so to pay for your ever-increasing energy bills. Did you ever consider that the two might be related?

No, dude, I never thought that the falling dollar would affect the price of anything but caviar in Schtaad. See, it's insight like this that keeps me glued to CNBC all day long...

Prooftexting gets nasty

I'm pretty sure that's not what Solomon meant:

[T]here are millions of people throughout history who have actually swallowed the idea of urine as medicine. It is often called urotherapy.

"Drink waters out of thine own cistern"
- Book of Proverbs

Given a choice between "a flagon most foul with rancid port" and drinking their own urine, most will probably choose the rancid port. Surprisingly though, many would not. The belief that urine has powerful healing properties existed even centuries before the Bible extolled its virtues.

Maybe I'm just a little skeptical of the benefits of recycling absolutely everything, but I'm pretty sure the Bible does not extoll the virtues of drinking your own urine. And while the proof text above is obviously poetic* rather than literal, the context is such that I think a lot of people who think** God wants them to drink their own urine are going to be surprised when it is interpreted properly.

The quote is from Proverbs 5, the first 14 verses of which are a plea to a son to avoid adultery. Verse 15 (the one noted above) begins a "counterpoint***" section, which concludes: "Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." (vv 18-19, KJV). Why God would drop an admonition to enjoy a frosty mug of Urinade in the middle of such a monologue remains unexplained****.

But that does not mean that there are no occasions in which the Bible mentions such an act as a possibility. In 701bc, The Assyrian army was beseiging Jerusalem, and king Sennacherib sent one of his captains, a man named Rabshekah, up to negotiate the city's surrender:

Then Eliakim (King Hezekiah's messenger) ... said to Rabshakeh, "Please speak in the Syrian language, because we understand it. Do not speak with us in the Jews’ language within the hearing of the people that are on the wall."

But Rabshakeh replied, "Has my master sent me only to your master and you to give my message? He has sent me to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you."

Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says, 'Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand.'" (2 Kings 18:26-28)

Perhaps rather than threatening them with starvation if they did not surrender, he was offering them medical advice...

* they could have made an even better case by including the rest of the verse: "...and running waters out of thine own well."

** obviously I'm using this word loosely.

*** Not as in "Maybe you should commit adultery after all" but as in "Point: Don't chase hookers. Counterpoint: chase your wife." It is a change of perspective, not one of direction.

**** Which is something of a shame, actually.

Wanted: recipes

Sometimes the answer is embedded in the question:

According to Kathy Warnick, president of Pets Across America, the largest umbrella organization for animal shelters serving more than 130 million people, global warming is thought to be a contributing factor to the dramatic increase of stray, owned, and feral cats...

The organization associates their steady increase of cat intake — a startling 7 percent last year alone — to likely be an example of how warmer climates really do affect the number of cats breeding more frequently.

Let's see, they have lots of cats, and they claim to serve 130 million people. It seems to me that the easiest solution* is to serve the cats to the people. Then you don't need to worry about global warming. All you need is a steady supply of taco shells and cayene pepper.

* Assuming they do not serve people like McDonald's serves hamburgers.

Help out Whitey

Awaiting the gap

CNN Money points out a pessimistic portent*:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of vacant homes for sale rose in the third quarter, according to the latest government reading that casts new harsh light on the weakness of the housing market.

The Census Bureau report puts the number of vacant homes for sale at 2.07 million in the period, up about 2 percent from the second quarter, and 7 percent above year ago levels...

There are estimates that about 2.8 million homeowners could see the payments on their subprime mortgages reset higher in the next two years. If they can't afford the new payments or be able to refinance due to the significantly tighter mortgage market, that could cause an additional flood of empty homes onto the market.

"It's very hard to see how this doesn't get worse," Baker said. "It's certainly possible we could see 3 million, maybe 4 million (vacant homes on the market.)"

The important point to note is that these are not total homes on the market, but vacant ones, unoccupied ones, "extra" homes that no one is presently living in. And since we can assume that everyone who was living in these homes is now living somewhere else, and since we can assume that most everyone who would move into them will leave an empty home behind, the number of empty homes on the market is not simply a "weakness" in the market, but is rather indicative of two structural issues.

The first is simply one of overbuilding. There can be no doubt that the current housing market is horribly overbuilt, that too many of these homes are second homes built for flippers who intended to sell them in a hot market or rent them to people who never materialized, and too many are spec homes built by builders because that's what builders do**. There are simply too many homes for all the current potential buyers to buy.

But the second*** is one that is far more serious than a few builders just getting ahead of themselves. With prices of all those things not included in 'inflation' rising by double digits, there will be fewer people who can afford homes at any price - in short, the number of potential buyers is dropping. Combine that with the abject fear of mortgage lenders to hand money over to marginal credit risks - ARMs and jumbos are, for the most part, a thing of the past - and you further reduce the number of potential buyers. This is not simply a pause where we wait to grow into the current supply, but quite possibly a sea change that will overcompensate for the excesses of the past decade or more. We are not about to pause here until the number of buyers rises, we are reaching a point where the number of houses must go down to meet them. Work through in your mind potential secenarios for that.

And the prices of houses need to go down as well. They have not yet, in large measure because of market gridlock. People, especially those who have recently moved in, must price their homes based on the price they paid - after all, with no equity and little money in the bank, they need 6% more (to cover the commission) than they paid just to leave empty-handed. but there are no buyers at that price, so they sit, and worry, and panic. They cannot afford to sell at the current, lower value of their home, but occasionally they must move anyway, leaving behind an empty home, and they can no more afford 2 mortgages than they could one. They must, at some point, find a way to walk away, to get out from under it, or they will go bankrupt. If they can't find a way, it will happen when they go bankrupt.

That is what is building presently. Home sales are dropping, 14% in St. Louis, 38% across Florida (44% in Polk County) and by half in some areas of California. This is not a weak market, it is a market locking up. And when a market locks up, the pressure builds. Like an earthquake it must break loose one way or the other. With the number of potential buyers dropping and the financial pressure on millions of individuals and companies to get out from under the overage, that breakout, one that leaves an unprecedented gap in the charts, is overwhelmingly likely to be down. Down as far as 2005 was up, and a whole lot faster.

* alliteration alert

** Until they go bankrupt, which is what is starting to happen now.

*** And more merely potential, I'll admit.

My favorite fight scene

(hat tip: JD)

Getting around the inconvenient

In dealing with Jesus' water-to-wine miracle, Pastor Kevin shows how it's done:

How do we come to the conclusion about what type of "wine" this was? First, we must look at the immediate context. Notice what the governor of the feast said concerning the quality of the wine in John 2:10 "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now."

This man, after having "well drunk" of the previous wine was still able to discern the difference between the wine that had formerly been served and the wine that Jesus created. If the wine were alcoholic, then he would not be able to discern the difference at all.

The first thing that alcohol impairs in the mind is the sense of judgment and after having "well drunk" of alcohol this man should not be able to discern the appearance of the person in front of him, much less the quality of two different types of drink. Yet, he can discern between the two. This indicates that the wine was of the non-alcoholic sort.

Actually, it indicates exactly the opposite, that Jesus created 160 gallons of excellent, alcoholic wine, and he didn't bother to ask the Church of Christ for their permission.

The backstory for the biblically impaired is this: Jesus is invited to a wedding* at Cana, a small town in Galilee, and the wine runs out. His mother complains to him about the fact, and Jesus at her urging performs his first miracle. He instructs the servants to bring a whole bunch of jugs of water, then tells them to dip a cup in one of them and take it to the governor**, who makes the declaration to the bridegroom that the best was truly saved for last. Then Christians say it was really grape juice.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's break down the governor's statement*** (italicized above) and see if we can find the truth. You have the CoC's interpretation, here's mine:

"Every man" — This shows his statement to be one of general practice, not of the current party. He is informing the bridegroom of "how things are normally done," after which he will note that in this particular case, that protocol has been violated.

"at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when the men have well drunk, that which is worse" — This proves that the wine we are dealing with in general practice is alcoholic. Alcohol, as the CoC notes, dulls the senses, including taste, and the reason the bad wine is served last is so it doesn't taste quite so bad. Grape juice would not dull anything, so to insist that this is naught but grape juice removes the very meaning from the governor’s statement****.

"But thou hast kept the good wine until now" — This is where the general practice becomes particular, thou hast. After saying that the general practice is to serve the good wine first, he informs the bridegroom that the order has been upset in this case; he has saved the best for last. There's no theological application; it's just a recognition of the high quality of the wine.

Now the governor had just been given a cup to drink, and he did not know its origin. There is no reason for him to believe that it is any different than the alcoholic wine previously served. And just as we know the difference - and draw a distinction - between wine and grape juice, so did he. But he did not say "thou hast kept the grape juice," but "the good wine," wine that is the same as the wine that had previously run out. Therefore we can conclude that the wine Jesus created was the same as normally served, i.e. alcoholic wine.

One significant problem with the CoC's interpretation is that they assume that the governor himself has been drinking - that when he says "the men have well drunk" as a general principle he is referring to himself in this specific instance - but that is in all likelihood not the case. Of all the people at the wedding, the governor was the least likely to have drunk anything because unlike the others he's not celebrating: he's working.

But the major problem is that they just can't bring themselves to believe Jesus created 160 gallons of real wine, even though the Bible tells us so.

* His own, according to "Holy Blood Holy Grail." That was a pretty funny book.

** Not an elected official but a hired hand whose job it was to organize the party. We might consider him the head caterer, wine steward, or master of ceremonies today.

*** I'll even keep it in the KJV English, just to be fair.

**** Not to mention (even as I do) the gastro-intestinal effects on a crowd, however large (the Jews had big weddings and they lasted for a long time) of 160 gallons of pure grape juice. Just drinking one glass of that gives me the trots.

A dangerous overreliance on technology

TOKYO - Did you just grope me? Shall we head to the police? That's the message women are flashing on their cell phones with a popular program designed to ward off wandering hands in Japan's congested commuter trains...

The application flashes increasingly threatening messages in bold print on the phone's screen to show to the offender: "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" "Groping is a crime," and finally, "Shall we head to the police?" ...

The application, which can be downloaded for free on Web-enabled phones, is for women who want to scare away perverts with minimum hassle and without attracting attention, according to Takahashi's Web site.

"I first downloaded this as a joke," said Spicy Soft official Michika Izumi. "But I think it could be a lifesaver if I get groped."

Even granted that "lifesaver" is a bit of rhetorical excess, this is a fine example of technology that makes everyone feel better while accomplishing absolutely nothing. Seriously, if you flash the question, "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" to a groper rather than simply saying it, all you have relayed is that you don't want a hassle and don't want attention, pretty much what the groper wants (though admittedly those are #2 and #3 on his priority list).

Flashing, "Shall we head to the police?" when you have already admitted that you cannot bring yourself even to speak to him and really don't want to make a scene will certainly bring a smile to his face.

There are two strategies that will work far better, I think. One is to use the cell phone to take a picture of the groper, either for displaying on the web or turning over to the police or the press*. That worked pretty well with this guy**. The second one is to turn toward the groper, whisper softly in his ear, "I'm glad you find me attractive. That really made my day," and then bring your knee up as hard as you can.

Then if you still want to take a picture of him you can, but I think the problem will be pretty much solved at that point.

* Or all of them. There's no need to be exclusive.

** No relation, swear to God.

The only problem with the slippery slope

Is that the bottom eventually arrives:

A radical plan to improve the nation's health - including a workplace "exercise hour" - has been unveiled by a leading Government adviser.

New figures today show England is the fattest country in the EU. Now Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, hopes to encourage people to improve their diets, give up smoking and exercise more.

He proposed the introduction of a smoking permit, which smokers would be required to show each time they bought tobacco. It is then their choice to go smoke free and not buy a permit.

Companies with more than 500 staff would have an " exercise hour". Employees would have to deliberately choose not to join in...

Not join in for now, they mean. It's easy to say that this is just England. And it's easy to note (as the article does) that this is still the opposite of current government policy. But the problem remains that it is still obscenely logical. And if it follows from the premise, it will eventually arrive.

Walk thru this with me:

a) Government is responsible for ensuring that people do not hurt themselves. This is the only the argument behind anti-smoking laws, drinking ages, seatbelt laws, and sin taxes. Why should the government punish you for not wearing a seatbelt? Because it does not want you to hurt yourself.

b) Not being healthy is one way of hurting yourself. Therefore it follows that Government is responsible for making sure that everyone receives proper health care. We will eventually get a "single-payer" plan* because everyone needs to be healthy, and unless government steps up, that won't happen.

c) He who pays the piper calls the tune. Therefore it follows that since the government will be paying for your health care, the government will have the final say over what care you get. It is a simple fact that even (maybe especially) if government runs health care, there will be rationing. It always and everywhere happens, and somebody has to decide who deserves** the scarce resources. They begin by denying care to the expensive***, but that still does not allow everyone to have all they want for free. They still must reduce costs, which always rise under socialism, there being no market incentive for keeping them down.

d) Unhealthy people cost more than healthy ones. Therefore it follows that the government can force you to exercise and eat healthy. They do not today, just like in the 60s when they demanded the surgeon general's warning on a pack of cigs they were not banning smoking in your own car. But it followed logically and therefore would eventually arrive.

The problem with the slippery slope is not that it's a logical fallacy**** but that it's an eventuality. As soon as you accept the premise that government exists to protect you from yourself, you have no argument against the government forcing you to exercise every day. The only question that remains is how long it will take for them to enforce it.

* Assuming, which I don't, that the dollar survives the first Rodham administration.

** Besides themselves, obviously.

*** It starts with the fat smoker and ends with the preemie, the aged, and the handicapped.

**** It only seems a fallacy because most people can't reason over time.

I didn't make this one

but I like it just the same.

(hat tip: Jozum)

I just bought this

For $10, plus twice that to ship it priority mail to my house from New York.

Anyone want to take a guess at what it is? Get it right and in 6 months I'll share with you what it's designed to help create.

A Parade of Idiots

The woman who says, "I feel that my parents' grave has been robbed" because she dropped her $600k inheritance on a house worth maybe half that has got to be queen of the Island of Misfit Real Estate Flippers. All she needs is a plastic crown made of old credit cards.

Bede, we never knew ye

So I'm playing around in LimeWire today trying to find some out-of-print English history books. Basically, I'm checking up on Bede's account of the arrival of the Picts, which he claimed was centuries before his own day - since he didn't see it, he must have had a source. And since Nennius reports the same thing, obviously it might help in tracking Nennius' sources to discover Bede's.

I never tried the Gnutella Network before, but figured what the heck, you never know what you'll find. I even put some public-domain .MP3 files of Gildas' "On the Ruin of Britain" in my shared folder for anyone interested. After all, I wouldn't want to be a leech*.

Anyway, there are apparently people out there who will go to great lengths in an effort to get you to download their software no matter what you're looking for. I assume what they are offering, rather than out-of-print tomes, are ZIPped up Trojan horses or some such and that they change file names to match your searches.

How can I be so sure they are not what I'm really looking for? Well, with titles like these, let's just say I'm a mite suspicious:

Sexy Venerable Bede
Venerable Bede Hentai Anime
Venerable Bede Young and Cute (DVD Rip)
[Full] Venerable Bede Naked
Venerable Bede (uncensored)
Venerable Bede Wet and Wild
Venerable Bede Sexy Webcam

I mean sure, I'm not absolutely certain that the Venerable One didn't have a webcam that he danced naked in front of after vespers. But I am absolutely certain that if he did have one, I don't want to see it.

* Hey, they are great files. Look, I can't help that I'm a geek. Stop making fun of me.

An Historical Curveball

Parliament is still baffled:

The passing of the Stamp Act, therefore, galvanised American public opinion against Britain, stimulating inter-colonial political awareness and co-operation. Indeed it met with an open and unexpectedly determined opposition, with many arguing that it was not only unconstitutional but an infringement on their liberty, and calling for greater political freedom under the slogan of 'no taxation without representation'. The ensuing intense political debate focused initially on the issue of Parliamentary representation, but soon expanded into wider questions of sovereignty.

It never was about representation. I know that's an unusual claim to make, especially in this modern era where our own nation's capital issues license plates with the slogan 'Taxation Without Representation' in an effort to lobby for a representative and a pair of senators.

The slogan lends itself quite well to that particular interpretation - which is why it has so long been interpreted just that way - but if representation was the issue, then the issue could be settled (and the taxes approved) by providing America with a few representatives in Parliament.

But there was never an American plan to do so, and the few* British plans of the time illustrate the predicament the Americans would have gotten themselves into had they pushed the issue in that direction. Under the old British system, cities and counties each had representation in Parliament. London, at 700,000 people, had 8 representatives out of the nearly 600, and counties generally got but 2. Virginia, our largest colony, had barely 500k in total and no cities that even came within an order of magnitude of London. It would have been considered a county and might have had an extra MP or two to represent urban areas. In fact, under the British plans, America (which included both Canada and the British West Indies, whose representatives could be counted on to remain under the thumb of parliament**) would have had at best 30 MPs of 600, and in return they would have had to submit to all manner of direct British taxation. It would have been a terrible deal, and the Americans knew it, which is why they never pushed it.

But the British thought it a bad idea as well. Since Parliament already claimed the right to tax the colonies, they didn't see any gain from inviting these uncultured provincials into their midst. And with America doubling in population every 25 years (Ben Franklin's claim to Parliament) it would not take long before America just might need more representation. A lot more. So much more that a passing rumour that Parliament might have to eventaully meet in America so scared the proper*** British that the plans quickly died.

What the Americans wanted, simply, was no direct taxation. But it was not as if they were being greedy; they were already suffering under a virtual tax burden far and above what the already-overtaxed British were themselves suffering. This was not, of course, what the British thought, nor does it appear in history books of the period. But work with me on this.

Under the various Navigation Acts, Americans could not send**** most of their goods to anywhere but Britain. So let's say the world market price for tobacco was $3 a pound (I'm making up numbers here to make the math easy but the proportions are accurate), the Americans got $1 a pound for shipping it to Britain and the British re-exported 85% of it for the full $3. What is that $2 a pound difference if not an effective tax? In fact, if we calculate it as a tax, it's on the order of 67% (we keep 1 dollar in 3) or 200% (We pay 2 dollars on 1) depending how you calculate it.

In short, America was by law dependent upon British traders who set the price for everything they exported or imported. Therefore the difference between what the British merchants demanded and what Americans could have received in a free market was effectively a tax.

Americans chafed under that, but they were willing to suffer it. But when the British began to demand pounds sterling (which we could not produce) for goods and then cut the Americans off from places we could get it in trade (like the Dutch West Indies) Americans began to sink quickly into debt, a problem compounded by the depression that followed the French and Indian War. When they then demanded that we pay pounds sterling in taxes as well, that was too much.

So when the cry of "No Taxation without Representation," went up, it was not a demand for representation, but a ruse, a curveball, a seemingly-reasonable demand based on a prerequisite that thoughtful Americans expected (and fervently hoped) would never be met. In fact, they probably would have worked to torpedo it if it was seriously considered*****.

So back to DC. They want representation to go with their taxation, but they, like the British, already receive much of their income from the taxation of others. For those others, I wonder how many of them would be willing to give up a few senators and representatives if it meant paying absolutely no direct federal taxes?

More than a few, I suspect. That is, after all, the American way.

* I have seen but two that got so far as to put real numbers down.

** The Indies were not colonies like America, but rather huge plantations owned by lords who were already in Parliament, Canada was populated mostly by French farmers who were, until the Quebec Act of 1774, disenfranchised.

*** Proper here meaning those who had no intention of visiting America, ever, if they could help it. Which was most of them.

**** and were completely forbidden from making most manufactured goods, lest they compete with Britain. Even if they produced cloth in their homes, it was unlawful to send it from, say, New York to New Jersey.

***** and if they had any torpedos, which they didn't.

The missing word

It's almost as if there's a conspiracy to avoid an embarassing conclusion:

NEW YORK (AP) - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder.

What used to last four days might last half that long now... "It even costs more to get the basics like soap and laundry detergent," said Michelle Grassia ...

Sales data show a marked and more prolonged drop in spending in the days before shoppers get their paychecks, when they buy only the barest essentials before splurging around payday.

"It's pretty pronounced," said Kiley Rawlins, a spokeswoman at Family Dollar. "It seems like to us, customers are running out of food products, paper towels sooner in the month."

Paychecks running out. People skipping meals. Rising costs for food, energy, rent, and basic necessities. People substituting* cheaper foods for more expensive. The article mentions that egg prices are up 44% for the year, milk up 21%. But there's still something missing.

Had this article been written in the 70s, those very facts would have led the press to scream "inflation," but I'm glad to report that the I-word is not mentioned in this whole article. Instead, we get a mention of possible recession, and one of subprime, and even one of "higher fuel costs" being a major reason for increasing food costs.

But no inflation so see here, people, move along. Uncle Sam assures us that while food prices may be up 4.1% for the year**, regular old inflation is up only half that - or put another way, "a separate (government) report on consumer prices, excluding food and energy items, suggested that inflation was contained***, giving policy makers leeway to cut U.S. rates for the second time this year."

And cutting rates, I suspect, is a far more important issue for Uncle Sam and his financiers than how many people are learning how to cook squash because they can't afford something edible****.

* This "substitution effect" is the reason the gov't in 1998 changed the way it calculated inflation, because in their words, "the current CPI, when compared with a measure that reflects this substitution effect, tends to overstate the rate of price increase consumers experience." In short, if instead of eating $10 worth of steak for dinner you're eating $10 worth of Alpo, there's no inflation. Your food is still costing you the same.

** Tell that to the chickens, they're getting ripped off.

*** Remember when subprime was contained? That was awesome!

**** Now, all that said, I do not believe that Uncle Sam is *completely* at fault here. People who shop for basics at 7-11 are paying more than they need to, and the claim that "Shoppers can't afford to load up at the supermarket and are going to the most convenient places to buy emergency food items like milk and eggs" makes no sense. Last time I checked, supermarkets did not enforce a minimum purchase. Besides, eating squash is good for you. As Calvin's dad once noted, "being miserable builds character."

Conformity

Now to find a cheap printer

I buy better than 3000 books a year. Not for my own reading, obviously, but being the owner of an online bookstore it's necessary to purchase that number simply to stay at the 7000-title level. I don't sell them all one at a time, but also provide bulk books for a number of brick-and-mortar stores across the country. On Monday I shipped, in addition to a few dozen individual orders, 378 Sci-fi, Western, and True Crime paperbacks to one of them. Each one of them had been lovingly (ha!) hand-picked, usually in a mad scramble on bag day at some book fair. You have barely enough time to test the binding and check for hilighting, then in the bag it goes. I have bought upwards of 800 books an hour that way (I can fit 60-80 in a paper grocery bag and pay $3-$5 a bag) but the hours that's available are few. The good stuff goes pretty quickly with several hundred other shoppers doing the same thing, and few are the sales that can justify 600 miles of driving for a few hours of frantic shopping.

Most often, time at a book fair is spent going over tables slowly, looking for titles I know I can turn over quickly. Or know that I want for myself.

The ones that go in my personal collection are a fairly rare breed: old econ books, old specialized history or archaeology books, and especially old bible commentaries, the rare ones that no one really wants. And Genesis commentaries are my favorite*.

Well, call me a slow learner but even though I've been using specific Google Books (as well as searching Archive.org) for a year or more - mostly for finding old Nennius references - this week was the first time I did a search to find as many commentaries on Genesis as I could find. Partially this was to check up on early iterations of the Tablet Theory and Documentary Hypothesis, mostly it was to see what titles existed so I could find them, cheaply if possible, on Amazon or Alibris.

I found nearly 30, dating from the 1600s to 1907, and I had never seen a single one at any sale I've ever attended. Some of them were valuable, some of them worthless, and in one I found a specific quote related to the Tablet Theory that I'd been looking for: a man named Driver looked at the toledoths, incorrectly concluded they were introductory rather than summary, and then suggested that the one at Gen 2:4 had been moved from the beginning of Genesis because it didn't fit his theory where it was! Yes, there are green cars in theology, too.

So I downloaded them all in .PDF, copied them to CD, and loaded them onto the laptop and will put them on my bookstore computer as well, just for safekeeping. But there's only one problem: I hate reading books on a screen.

There's something to be said for having a paper copy. When I first discovered Cooper's "After the Flood" online, I printed off the whole thing, page by page, and bound it myself in one of those cardboard 2-ring binders from Wal-Mart that seldom stay together, and scribbled notes all over it**. I did the same thing for "Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick," (I had purchased an 1895 copy for $20, but it 'disappeared' before it could be shipped to me, and the next cheapest hardcover was 5x as much) and any number of classical and medieval histories (mostly the ones, like Thallus' "Jugurthine Wars"***, that are too small to be published alone) and now have a whole cabinet full of them. Trying to keep track of dozens of poorly-bound, poorly-marked "manuscripts," I understand how a Medieval librarian must have felt****.

So now I've got them in electronic form, some of them running up to 700 pages; obviously I'm not going to print them all out. So what I need to find is one of those vanity printers who will do hardcovers on demand from .PDFs, hopefully for less than $50 a copy.

Then I'm going to need to buy a bigger building to put my collection in, I'm afraid.

* For some reason I suspect that fact may not have been missed by you, my faithful readers.

** I did eventually find a paperback copy, but now the spine is all busted up, and there was never enough room in the margins anyway.

*** I did find an 1854 copy of Tallus in hardcover for just a few buck on Amazon. It's 6" x 4" and about 1/4" thick. Unfortunately, it's also in Latin. Someday I'll be able to read it.

**** Except for that permanent hand cramp from writing them all out longhand. I thank God every night that a) those men existed and b) I was not one of them.

Buh-Bye

Senator Switchback bows to reality:

WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, the Kansas conservative who struggled to raise money and gain recognition in the 2008 presidential campaign, will drop out on Friday, people close to him said Thursday.

While it is alleged that a lack of money is the reason this exercise in futility is winding to a close, I think a lack of voters has to be a close second. Even if he had raised money on the level of Ron Paul (about 5x his quarterly total), his poll numbers were still down in the 1% area. Since they had not moved in the year since he began his campaign, the likelihood that anything would have moved them was slim.

Switchback has already said he wants to spend more time in Kansas*, so I suspect in 2 years he'll trade jobs with the current Governess of Kansas, who is ineligible for a third term. That will make for an interesting election cycle, to be sure.

* Which could be considered evidence of possible mental illness in some contexts. Except that he'll be moving from Washington, DC, so it's a definite step in the right direction.

Racist Catch 22

Nate writes KFC with a request:

I am offended by your recent commercial which shows an african american family sitting down to a nice meal consisting of your chicken. The probmem with this commerical is that it is depicted as a single parent family, as there are children and a mother, and no father.

I think that this commercial is very stereotypical, and because of that fact it offends me. I your commercials in the past, the white families have had fathers. I plan not to return to your company because of this fact.

Please stop being racist.

You can see the whole commercial over at Snoop's Place (hat tip) but hey, it's a commercial. You've probably already seen it 100 times.

But the funny thing is the beautiful Catch 22 the Racism Police have set up. Here we have a black woman with her kids. No dad. Obviously the racist stereotype is intentional. I mean, she probably bought the fried chicken with a welfare check, too. Aw, lawdy, pass the watermelon, Aunt Jemima... "Racist KFC, I'm never eating there again!"

So what happens if they add dad? Well, since 2/3 of black kids are raised without dad around, obviously then the commercial would be considered critical of black culture by the Racism Police (the same accusation was leveled at the Cosby Show). Black culture must not have been "good enough" for KFC. They're not keeping it real. "Why must you force white norms on black families? Racist KFC, I'm never eating there again!"

So what happens if they decide to avoid the trouble (and the Catch 22) by just not using black actors at all? Then they are accused of ignoring or marginalizing blacks. "Why won't you put black people in your commercials, Mr. Ad Exec? Racist KFC, I'm never eating there again!"

No matter what someone does, there is always some angle that can be used to prove that they are offending the person looking to be offended. And no matter what defense is put up, it can be twisted into proving its opposite. Catch 22.

Can you get Jihaded for this?

I hate when they say stuff like "Woe Betide"

The British press delivers a bit O bad news:

Japan and China led a record withdrawl of foreign funds from the United States in August, heightening fears of a fresh slide in the dollar and a spike in US bond yields.

Data from the US Treasury showed outflows of $163bn (£80bn) from all forms of US investments. "These numbers are absolutely stunning," said Marc Ostwald, an economist at Insinger de Beaufort... "Woe betide US Treasuries if inflation does not remain benign," he said...

Ian Stannard, a Paribas currency analyst, said the data was "extremely negative" for the dollar. "It exceeds the worst fears. It is not just foreigners who are selling US assets. Americans are turning their back as well," he said.

With both the IMF and the World Bank talking about dollar devaluation, the trade balance still at a record deficit, housing collapsing, gold heading for a record high, oil closing in on $90, the dollar chart now below 80 for 3 weeks, the Loonie above parity, the Euro at a record high, 2 bucks for a British pound, a demographic avalanche, a spendthrift government, a Treasury Secretary who is trying to figure out a way to keep all this subprime debt off of bank balance sheets, and a Fed Chairman who panics like PFC Hudson in Aliens*, the fact that the dollar will fall quickly and very far from here is obvious.

Too obvious.

All those things are true, of course, but they are all known. The contrarian in me says that it might just be time for an unexpected monster dollar rally. After all, there is no more profitable time to buy than when everyone else is panic selling.

Then again, contrarians are often too clever by half**.

* "That's it man, game over man, game over! What the %$#^ are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do? I know, let's cut rates."

** The half of their money they don't have any more.

So I was trying to recover that old header art...

Hey, Rocky

Watch me pull a .22 out of my hat...

A top restaurant is serving up free grey squirrel pancakes to hungry diners. Peking duck-style squirrel wraps are being offered to diners at The Famous Wild Boar Hotel...

The grey squirrels were caught in the hotel's 72-acre woodland grounds and have been prepared by head chef Marc Sanders.

I've never had grey squirrel due to the fact that they are rather rare in northern Minnesota, where I used to do my hunting. Sure, there were greys in the city*, but in the swamps where we hunted there were only red squirrels, lots and lots of red squirrels.

But there's a problem with eating something that has lived its entire life in a cedar swamp, and that is that (at least in the case of squirrels) it has spent its entire life eating parts of cedar trees. And that means that no matter how you cook it, whether you broil it or bake it in a pie or sautee it or dump it in a stew with plenty of Copenhagen snuff for flavoring, it still tastes almost but not exactly like a Christmas wreath.

* at least in the rich part with the big trees where my grandma lived. We didn't have any near my house, but we did used to snare rabbits with picture wire in the back yard and in the hills nearby. My brother Marty, he of the kill-the-baby-flying-squirrels-with-a-buck-knife fame, actually shot one in the back yard with his homemade bow. Poor little thing couldn't have been more than 8" long, and I still remember the smile on my brother's face as he proudly held the little bugger up, impaled on a homemade arrow and running for all he was worth. He tasted significantly better than chicken.

Here you go, JN

What's that rumbling?

Fox News points out a whole lot of pretty heading our way:

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Casey-Kirschling filed for early retirement Monday, becoming the first baby boomer to start collecting Social Security.

Born one second after midnight in January 1946, the retired teacher leads the way for as many as 80 million individuals who will qualify for the retirement payout.

There are approximately 150 million workers in the US. There will soon be approximately 80 million people trying to draw Social Security from their payroll taxes. The Boomer generation is very bad news, not because it's big but because there are comparatively few people directly behind it. While one retiree was supported by some 30 workers when SocSec was established, that number is now significantly smaller, approaching one retiree per two workers.

Just for the system to stay even, every one of the 80 million people drawing $1000 a month* will cost 2 people each $6000 a year in taxes. That's just SocSec taxes, not income taxes or gas taxes or property taxes. It might be cheaper and easier to just assign an old person directly to each working couple to take care of.

The Boomers are why SocSec is toast: there simply aren't enough people following behind them to financially support them in the way they expect. Every dollar that El Presidente and his GOP Prize Patrol, mostly boomers themselves, wasted over the past decade just meant that the eventual financial avalanche would reach us that much quicker.

* I know it's more, but I like round numbers.

Liberalism and decline

Debunking Christianity ponders a trend that I noted a long time ago:

There is an undeniable leftward trend to biblical or Christian scholarship. All one has to do is to observe the liberalizing and leftward trend of Biblical scholars and seminaries... Seminaries which defend inerrancy are relatively young and reactionary schools against the liberalizing schools they once supported. Yale, Princeton, and Harvard, for instance, were all started to train preachers.

Unfortunately, they draw precisely the wrong conclusion:

Could it be that a deeper level of Biblical understanding will lead progressively to greater disbelief in the Bible as God’s word? I think so.

As the main part of my answer, I'm going to posit two questions, the answers to which I think will serve to undercut the main assumption hidden in the above and lead to what I concluded a long time ago:

1) Does the combined faculty of Yale* have a "deeper level of biblical understanding" than, say, the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary?

Not remotely. In fact, I would venture that the average faculty member at Yale has a far shallower biblical understanding than does a second-year student at Ozark Bible College, to pick a local example. There are any number of reasons why (e.g. change in mission, addition of other studies, others that I'll mention below). Yale may have any number of distinguished faculty who individually know a lot**, but as an organization it knows very little. Therefore I think that the assumption that it is a greater level of understanding that led to the liberalism is faulty.

The second question is going to sound a bit cruel, but I think it must be asked. Since DC notes that, "Seminaries which defend inerrancy are relatively young and reactionary schools against the liberalizing schools they once supported," I ask this:

2) Where are the young seminaries that have been established by religious liberals?

There are none, or if there are, I'll take the fact that I can't name one as proof that they are irrelevant to the debate***. All liberal seminaries became liberal a generation or two after their founding by those we would consider conservatives.

From that we can draw two tenative conclusions: these organizations are established only by conservatives, and they are eventually (by which I mean a generation or more later) invaded by liberals who knock them from their original purpose. The arrival of liberals is therefore a sign that an organization is in decline and is well on its way to irrelevance in its original field. One need not listen very long to hear a radio Bible preacher who graduated from Dallas, but one would grow old indeed waiting to hear one from Yale. Yale, which graduated George W. Bush, John Kerry, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, is obviously important to America, but it is irrelevant to its original goal (Puritan religious orthodoxy) and perhaps even to modern American Christianity once that is separated from politics.

But this trend is not limited to seminaries by any means. It is also very well attested to in mainline Protestant**** denominations, which are now splitting over such trivialities as whether to appoint gay ministers, or to re-write long-sung hymns to get rid of such offensive words as 'soldiers' and scriptures to rid themselves of such oppressive terms as 'father.' They are also in decline in membership, in money, and in community impact. By the time the PCUSA finally sends down its newest stone tablets, 1/3 of the church will have died off, 1/3 will be Southern Baptists, and the rest will remain only to struggle next over whether they should sacrifice red rams or white to the Moon goddess.

It is also attested to in the political arena, where one could illustrate any number of organizations, from labor unions to "rights" organizations to political parties and their internal factions, which were established for an express purpose and today find their ranks filled by placeholders, charlatans, and crooks. If the original purpose of the organization is fulfilled (e.g. the right to vote or the 40-hour week), the decay of the organization is almost guaranteed to occur within a single generation.

In fact, it seems that all organizations have something of a life cycle: they are founded with a purpose and great energy; once they are established (i.e. gain some measure of power, influence, or money) they fill up with people who do not share the original goal (but would like to share in that power, influence, or money); they go into decline and eventually become corrupt, stale, and irrelevant. In short, they are born, they grow, they stagnate, and they die, just like us.

The fact that religious institutions follow the same life cycle as secular ones leads inescapably to the conclusion that what changes occur are part of the nature of human organizations themselves. If those changes exhibit themselves as religious liberalism in certain institutions that is only due to the fact that the original goal was religious conservatism*****.

Those two conclusions also lead us to a question, and it's one that the original American colonists struggled with then just as their descendants in the denominations they established struggle with today: since organizations die, is it better to attempt to reform them (Puritans) or to leave them (Pilgrims) altogether******? That most new seminaries are conservative and that most growing denominations are conservative is simply not a coincidence; it is a continued pursuit of the original goal based on the separatist Pilgrim model.

Mankind is cursed in that everything we build up will eventually fall down, and so for the mission to go on it must occasionally be rebuilt from the ground up. Therefore the presence of a critical mass of liberals, by which I mean enough people who do not believe in the original message to cause the organization as a whole to lose the original message, is not indicative of a "deeper understanding" of that message; it is indicative of the fact that the organization has no longer any understanding of (or use for) that message at all. If that understanding is to be regained, we must start again from scratch.

* The reason I picked Yale is because their logo (pictured) clearly betrays their roots. And it was established in exactly the manner DC asserts of modern conservative seminaries: as a reaction to the rising liberalism of another faculty, in this case, Harvard.

** Or at least publish a lot. Academics too often think that is the same thing, but it's not. In fact, let's assume for a moment that the Documentary Hypothesis is false (as I believe it to be). That means that the thousands of dissertations, books, articles, and speeches, and the millions of hours spent studying and arguing over its minutia, represent exactly no "biblical knowledge" at all. It only represents intricate and hard-earned knowledge about a false theory, which is about as valuable to real biblical studies as proposing and arguing over what kind of cheese the moon is composed of is valuable to geology.

*** Or it could be proof of my own ignorance. There may be a few. But since DC doesn't mention any either I think I'm on solid ground in assuming they are rare beasts.

**** The Catholics have proven somewhat exempt in the past century due to their reliance on tradition, but not wholly throughout the course of their history.

***** "Orthodoxy" might be a better term, but even it merely substitutes theological baggage for political. This whole essay is beset by every problem that arises when one tries to once-for-all name something that changes over the centuries.

****** This explains, in some small part, why I am no longer a Republican.

As Sarah obeyed Abraham

Debunking Christianity (a blog run by ex-Christians who complain that Christians refuse to link to it) levels an interesting charge, considering that its target is not a Christian:

Furthermore, if Christians really believed the Bible ... the man would be the domineering patriarchal head of the house in which a wife is to “obey” her husband just like Sarah obeyed Abraham (I Peter 3: 6), even to the point of lying to save his life by having sex with another man (Genesis 12: 10-16) and by letting him sleep with another woman so he could have a child (Genesis 16).

Abram actually lied twice in the manner of Gen 12 (pretending Sarah was his sister rather than his wife), but as to whether Sarah actually had sex with Pharoah, I doubt it very much for a couple of reasons. The major one is that I don't think such a conclusion is supported by the text. Pharoah does say of Sarah, "I have taken her to wife," but in the context of royalty and of Genesis "taken" can just as easily mean that she was added into Pharoah's harem*. In fact, it is the Egyptian nobles who "commend" her to Pharoah, resulting in her being taken, but there is no indication that he personally even saw her.

So how do we choose which of the two mutually-exclusive posibilities is the more likely interpretation? By looking at the other example, in Gen 20:2-6. Same story, different king:

[Then] Abraham said of Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." So Abimelech king of Gerar sent for and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, "You are a dead man: the woman you have taken (there's that word again - El B) is another man's wife."

But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, "Lord, will you also slay a righteous nation? Did he not tell me, 'This woman is my sister'?" And did she not herself say, 'He is my brother'? I did this with an honest heart and innocent hands."

And God said unto him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with an honest heart. That is why I kept you from sinning against me by not allowing you to touch her."

I suspect that Pharoah got a similar wake-up call and that he touched her no more than did the king of Gerar. But that one, lacking any more specificity, may remain a matter of conjecture. The next one, that Sarah obeyed Abraham by "letting him sleep with another woman so he could have a child," is not.

Gen 16:1-3 reads this way:

Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. Now she had a household slave, an Egyptian, named Hagar**. And Sarai said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from bearing children, therefore I ask you to go in to my maid; perhaps I may have children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai."

Now a lot of people today would think it a crazy idea that a woman would wish to share her husband while the rest probably think that because it was (likely) a man who is telling this story he suppressed Abram's libido-driven manipulation of his wife into such a position. After all, no woman would do this on her own.

Well, no modern woman anyway. But several of the aforementioned Nuzi tablets deal with the issue of spousal obligations in the 2nd millennium bc Middle East, and one in particular sheds some light on Sarah's actions:

"...Kelim-ninu has been given in marriage to Shennima. If Kelim-ninu bears children, Shennima shall not take another wife; but if Kelim-ninu does not bear, Kelim-ninu shall aquire a woman of the land of Lullu as wife for Shennima, and Kelim-ninu may not send the offspring away. Any son that may be born to Shennima from the womb of Kelim-ninu, to these shall be given the lands and buildings of every sort..."
-- ANET p. 220, Published by E. Chiera, HSS, v(1929), No. 67, Translated by E.A. Speiser, AASOR, x(1930), 31 ff

As in the case of Jacob and Laban, there are a number of interesting parallels***, but the main one here is obviously that of a barren woman providing her husband a surrogate spouse for the purpose of having children. And they were not just the husband's children, but the (original) wife's as well. Sarah expressed it this way, "that I may obtain children by her." The children of a slave were the children of a slaveowner. Sarah's slave, Sarah's children.

But why would she do such a thing? I don't join those, like Ray C. Stedman, a man whom I admire no little bit, who think that "to give him the son of his heart's desire, Sarai was willing to sacrifice that [monogamous] relationship. It was not only an act of real sacrifice, but also one of deep sincerity." I don't think that at all. I think that Sarah felt keenly the pain of her barrenness, felt that she was a failure**** as a wife and a woman for not accomplishing a major expectation of her culture. In other words, it was her desire for a child of her own, not a sincere concern for her husband's progeny, that causes her to propose this. It was not a selfless act, but a selfish one, and there is nothing in her words here or actions later that leads us to believe that she did it for any person other than herself.

Now, all manner of bad things came of the whole situation: family strife, hatred, violence, and eventual banishment of Hagar and her son. Perhaps, if Ishmael is indeed the father of today's Arabs, that strife carries into our own times. Therefore the supreme irony of the situation, getting back to the original criticism of Abram's "domineering" patriarchalism, is not that Sarah obeyed Abram, but that he obeyed her. Had Abram the stones to say no to his wife as he should have, a multitude of later problems never would have occurred.

* It's important to remember that the taking of "extra" wives by ancient royalty was mainly a matter of cementing alliances between friendly powers. Abram is noted elsewhere as being "very rich" and will later field a private army, so it is very probably the case that Pharoah's nobles thought they were setting up this manner of alliance and that Abram merely played along. He is, as we will see, not often in the habit of saying no.

** The text doesn't say this, but I think it probable that she was brought back when Abram was bum rushed out of Egypt. The name Hagar, according to Strong's, is of "uncertain (perhaps foreign) derivation."

*** and two of them, the practice of the original wife formally "sending away" such offspring and the legally-defined position of a natural son over a son born of such an arrangement, do not exist in later Hebrew culture and are obviously too detailed and too parallel with the findings of Archaeology for Genesis here to be anything other than a contemporary account.

**** And we will soon see how personally she takes slights related to that. As soon as Hagar becomes pregnant, she apparently lords the fact over Sarah. Sarah immediately begins to mistreat Hagar and eventually drives her out of the family.

Oops

Confounding the Confused

The wife of future First Lady Bill Clinton tries it again:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who last month suggested giving $5,000 "baby bonds" to every child born in America but later backed away, called yesterday for a new retirement plan that would boost individual savings with federal tax credits.

Clinton's plan would match the first $1,000 of retirement savings for families making up to $60,000 per year. The proposal would provide a 50 percent match for families making between $60,000 and $100,000.

"I believe that if you work hard and contribute to our country, you should have the opportunity to save and invest," Clinton said during the last of a four-day campaign swing through Iowa.

It's a strange mindset that presumes that it takes a government program to give people "the opportunity to save and invest." Hell, I thought we had banks in this country. But what I really like about her plan* is the outrage toward it at the Democratic Underground, many of whose denizens think that it's a) simply a ploy to boost the stock market or b) that it sounds like a Republican plan.

And while they may or not be correct that it is a "ploy," it certainly would boost the stock market. Any time you encourage more people to invest in stocks that is bound to happen. And it *does* sound like a Republican plan. It is, in fact, the partial privatization of Social Security. It's just done too stealthily for most to see it.

Work with me here a second:

The "real" inflation rate is at least three times the government's reported numbers. They exclude food and energy (food prices are increasing at a tremendous rate, oil prices are at an all-time high) and for the most part housing. For what is left government statisticians apply hedonic** price adjustments to trim the increase.

But SocSec increases (including distributions, which are gauged proportionally to how much one contributed but unadjusted for inflation) are based on the phony-baloney number, which means that as the years pass, Soc-Sec gets smaller and smaller relative to the actual money it costs to eat. It is also actuarially unsound, demanding that if current promises are to be kept the government must eventually break either the promises through means-testing, the economy through taxation, or the dollar through inflation.

So to avoid that triple-cross, Hillary would create a mobile 401(k) that would provide everyone with similar retirement income that would probably grow faster than SocSec monies. But it could still be counted a government benefit. It is functionally the same as GWB's SocSec plan, except that he made the mistake of calling it part of SocSec. Hillary's plan simply replaces SocSec while pretending it's still whole.

So as the years pass, SocSec begins to fade out, replaced by an individually-directed***, non-benefit-defined accounts. No wonder those at the Democratic Underground hate it, even if they don't understand it.

* Not that I particularly like the plan itself. It would be far easier and safer to simply eliminate taxation of interest and then stop driving interest rates to sub-market levels.

** Their word, not to be confused (too much) with hedonistic.

*** within government-approved bounds, i.e. the stock and bond markets, but one can still get around that by purchasing ETFs or royalty trusts as I do in mine.