You Worry Too Much About Money, by Cybersmythe

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

You Worry Too Much About Money, by Cybersmythe

Here in the United States, we worry about dollars. Everything from cheeseburgers, to the gross domestic product (GDP), to the national debt is denoted in dollars. When I recently negotiated a salary at my new job, that amount was in dollars. That’s because the dollar is the kind of money that the US uses. Other parts of the world may worry about Euros or Yen or Pesos or Yuan or even other flavors of dollars. The point is that it’s all money, and it is probably not what anyone needs to be worried about.

GDP is especially pernicious because government spending is added directly to the bottom line, and scary words like “recession” and “depression” have definitions that are tied directly to the GDP. The government also controls the amount of money that there is, so if you want your economic numbers to look good, all you have to do is generate a bunch of money and spend it on, well, anything or nothing at all and presto! No recession! Ain’t the economy great?

When I say that you probably don’t need to worry about money, I’m not making some sort of hippy dippy claim about how if we were all to just live together in peace and harmony everyone would have enough, so stop worrying and join the chosen! On the contrary, my point and purpose is to give you something else to worry about. Paying attention to the flows of money won’t give you the real picture of how the economy is doing, so let me tell you where your attention should really be going. By the way, none of this is intended to argue that money isn’t necessary, only that it is not core to an economy.

Let’s start by the observation that money isn’t wealth, it only represents wealth. That’s because money, by definition, only becomes useful when you trade it for something. It’s the goods and services that you trade for that’s the real wealth. The problem, of course, is that it’s hard to compare all the myriad forms of wealth in a meaningful way, so of course one is forced to use money for that. Hence the use of GDP to describe how the economy is doing, but like the old saying goes the map is not the territory.

Times are good when you have all you need and more besides. Times are bad when you’re having to make hard choices concerning what you need. Sometimes times are bad for you when they aren’t for most people. Sometimes, times are good for you even when your neighbors have to tighten their belts. Given those definitions, it’s not clear that it is meaning to talk about what times are like, in general. However, people can intuitively tell when things are generally good and when things are bad, and measuring the GDP gives you a way to quantify that. Nevertheless, people don’t buy and sell little bits of GDP. They, instead, buy things they need and sell things they have, and the flow of wealth is in the direction opposite of the flow of the money.

Understanding that money is not wealth also reveals the source of phenomena like inflation. In principle, (hands waving wildly to distract you from the fact that nobody knows what all the wealth is, nor how much money there is) you can take all dollars in the world and put them in a pile, and you can also place all the wealth in a big pile, and assign a bit of money to each bit of wealth. That is, in some sense, the value of that bit of wealth in dollars. That allocation will change over time as dictated by the law of supply and demand, but there are other things you can do.

You could, for example, add a bunch of money to the money pile. Then, every bit of wealth now has more money assigned to it. That’s inflation. People often observe that the government need not tax anything because they can just create the money needed to pay for the things they do. While that is true, kind of, it is much harder to create that much more wealth that quickly. You could also remove a bunch of money from the money pile, and the result is what is called deflation.

We’re not likely to see deflation, however, because money isn’t just traded for things. Sometimes, money is traded for money. No, I’m not talking about currency exchange. Instead, I’m talking about trading the same kind of money in time. As in, I get a bunch of money all at once and I give it all, plus a bit more, back to you a bit at a time. A loan, in other words. Inflation makes it easier to pay the loan back because inflated dollars you use to pay it back are worth less than the uninflated dollars you borrowed. Since the US Government is America’s biggest debtor, the fact that the US Government also has control over the money supply means that you’re always going to see some inflation. Sometimes more, and sometimes less.

Looking at money as if it was not wealth also puts paid to Marx’s labor theory of value. The value is the amount of wealth created by whatever process, and is independant of the effort required to create that wealth. If no one values the end product of the work, then no wealth was created. You cannot make anyone rich by paying them to engage in unproductive labor. It makes no economic sense to pay one person to dig holes while also paying another person to fill them in, although you might choose to do that for other reasons.

Bear in mind that wealth is created and destroyed all the time. When I go to Whataburger to buy a cheeseburger, that valuable assembly of tasty food doesn’t exist an hour before I arrive and ceases to exist shortly after I buy it. Other bits of wealth may last longer, but nothing lasts forever. So, making new things is something that needs to be done continuously just to keep up. Wars are paroxysms of wealth destruction, so it also makes no sense to justify starting a war for economic reasons, although (once again) you might have other reasons for doing that.

So, that’s what I think. Paying attention to the money is simple but causes people to not see what is really at the heart of an economy becuase it’s the stuff that’s more important.

121 thoughts on “You Worry Too Much About Money, by Cybersmythe”

  1. I’m in a position where I do not worry all that much about money, only about what good I am able to do with it whether to feed myself and family or occasionally buy a few useful things.

    What scares the bejabbers out of me is how once in office our elected officials somehow feel that every fiscal practice that works at the family level is no longer valid. A frugal family lives within their means only going into debt when absolutely necessary. Of course those that don’t, living the high life and racking up massive credit card debt will resort to bankruptcy rather than rein in their profligate excess. This is apparently the standard model for politicians and has put this country in debt to the tune of 36 Trillion dollars, That’s Trillion with a T! The interest alone on that sum has reached the level where it now outpaces what we budget each year for defense.

    The thing is, countries cannot take their troubles to bankruptcy court. Instead they default on their obligations and often experience a drastic and painful restructure or in some cases cease to exist.

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    1. One of my classmates in high school, waaaaayyyyyy back when, stated, “A recession is when your neighbor is out of work. A depression is when you’re out of work.” She pretty much hit the nail on the head.

      When a country defaults on their fiscal obligations, that drastic and painful restructuring should include the complete seizure of all wealth of those government officials in a managerial position: elected, appointed, or hired. The best punishment there is, is not to execute them for their crimes of malfeasance and criminal incompetence; but to turn them all into the poorest of the poor that they victimized and disparaged.

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      1. To quote, if perhaps not exactly, from a Ronald Reagan stump speech in 1980: “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose your job. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job.”

        Was your classmate lifting from Reagan, or vice versa? Not enough information to say.

        Massive agreement on making government officials accountable, materially and otherwise. They need to have skin in the game, to use Taleb’s formulation — and not just propping up enough elements of the economy so that their insider trading can reap them huge returns.

        Republica restituendae.

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    2. In politics, the rewards are perverse, thus family frugality and budgeting becomes dysfunctional for reelection.

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  2. Jean-Baptiste Say made exactly that point in Chapter XV, “On outlets,” of his Treatise on Political Economy (originally published 1803): “There is always enough money to be used for circulation and for reciprocal exchange of other values, when those values really exist.”

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    1. When this statement was written, it wasn’t actually always true. This is the one advantage of fiat currency – that the supply of money can expand to the supply of wealth. The disadvantage, well, that’s inflation.

      We’ll never have another Great Bullion Famine while we’re on fiat… but we do have hyperinflation.

      Everything’s a compromise! Nothing this side of heaven is perfect!

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      1. Was that actually an issue in Say’s time? I thought that the Spanish bullion shipments had massively increased the supply of currency metals in Europe (and incidentally subjected Spain itself to the ruinous effects of inflation).

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        1. ISTR the England nearly going bankrupt in this timeframe because of a lack of gold in the Bank of England vaults.

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          1. There was also William Jennings Bryan howling about too little gold available for coining money (the “Cross of Gold!” speech) and calling for “free and unlimited coinage of silver” as the solution.

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            1. Yes, but Bryan’s argument was precisely the kind of fallacious reasoning that Say diagnosed. “I can’t sell my merchandise because money is tight” or “I can’t get a loan because money is tight” leads to “let’s increase the amount of money in circulation, to encourage sales/lower interest rates”—and that leads to inflation and, worse, to overoptimistic investments and even bubbles.

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              1. Lack of money has historically often been a reason for economies to struggle. There was an emperor who accidentally caused a boom by coining a lot of small coins to vaunt his victories and making it a lot easier to make change. (Larger coins can also help.)

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                1. I’m aware of that as a problem of the European middle ages, for example. But I’m also aware that it’s often asserted as a problem for economies that have plenty of currency in circulation, and even bank notes and other fiduciary media of exchange, by people who want to justify inflationary policies. Inflation was certainly an issue during the French Revolution, when Say wrote his treatise. And the Free Silver movement that Bryan supported was known to be inflationary even in his own time; it appears that the monetary value of silver coins was greater than the value of the silver that they were made of, and that allowing free and unlimited coinage of silver would have been a version of fiat money.

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  4. A whole bunch of very rich hollyweirdoes and other LA leftroids just got burned out when leftist rule met a predictable and typical fire season and Santa Anna wind.

    At some point, they all try to rebuild.

    Some are not insured due to reguations driving out providers, thus they are rather impoverished.

    Some will be told the shocking extra costs to build today, and be priced out, thus they are rather impoverished.

    Some will find out that the net regs simply add up to “nope”.

    Super rich oligarchs will harvest the fire sale, or their minions will seize the “distressed” properties.

    Much much anguish may Red Pill a small set of salvageable folks.

    Most of the rest are going to be very irrationally angry, and Denand The State Resume Facilitating Their Delusions, er Demands.

    This may be the point where the sane reclaim California for the USA. Or, more likely, the CAs roll harder left and go Peoples Democratic Republic because they obviously have been far too tolerant of the Right screwing up all their dreams.

    I need to buy more popcorn. I sense a coming demand for it may outstretch supply.

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    3. The Reader thinks that they will roll further left. Burning down LA won’t bite them in the arse hard enough. See Cuba and Venezuela. It is going to create another group of immigrants to America that will have to be vetted.

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  5. James Woods is one of those who lost his home. I don’t know if he’d done any of the precautionary fire prevention measures recommended for reducing the chances of loss; such as fire breaks, metal roofing, removal of trees and brush from around the home, stone exteriors, masonry walls around the property, etc.

    If he didn’t have those measures in effect, then I’ll dub him as a faux conservative if he complains about the loss of his home beyond the fire hazards of homeless encampments or failure to keep the hydrants hydrated. True conservatives take preventive measures.

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    1. He had as many of them done as the blatantly corrupt LA County, CA state, and Federal governments would allow.

      The people of CA voted to mitigate this in 2014, and ten years later, they are seeing that their votes mattered not a tinker’s damn.

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    2. If he isnt actively and noisily opposing the current “system”, he is going along. He has enough money to live anywhere. He chose to stay there.

      I have to make a simiar choice about my own location, as the LeftLooooooons here have essentially taken over and said “go pound sand”. So I either blow wads of cash on what is likely a futile quest to change the local scene, or GTFO before the Gods of the Copybook Headings start dishing out wisdom here.

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      1. His house survived, presumably with damage. Which is a nice thumb in the eye to the folks who were gloating that a “climate change denier,” had lost his home.

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    3. I can see where the houses near the forest were doomed by stupidity, but the aerial clip I saw indicated that what looked like normal suburbia got clobbered. With high winds, I figure that windows are going to break from the heat, and the house’s exterior ain’t going to help when the interior starts.

      Sometimes, “small” differences make for big results. A friend was in one of the big fires in San Diego. His house survived while the others on his street didn’t. The difference: his soffits were closed in, while the others weren’t.

      Over 10 years ago, a rural development a few miles from us went up in a large (2000+ acre) fire. The houses that did OK had good defensible space, while the ones that didn’t were doing things like piling firewood next to the house and strapping propane tanks to the walls. OTOH, in ’21, we had a huge (400,000+ acres) fire. Most of it was NF land, but the rural settlements didn’t stand a chance. When pyrocumulus (and their evil cousins, pyrocumulonimbus) clouds persist for days, you’re in a slow motion Hiroshima situation. [We were lucky; both fires started away from us and went in safe-for-us directions. Didn’t like the chewy air quality, though.]

      In a firestorm condition, I doubt “reasonable” precautions are going to be sufficient. Got a spare missile silo?

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      1. No real forests on those hills, not enough native water to have any forest. There’s some coast oak and other not-huge trees and stuff in the canyons, and sparse trees scattered around on some of the more open hillsides, but it’s mostly just scrub and grasses.

        Once you get into the suburbs there’s obviously lots of trees, and lots of burnable houses.

        Watch the IR sat video linked below (if WP deigns to allow it) – note that the Palisades fire was burning and spreading for hours before suddenly the Eaton fire bursts into view and grew rapidly.

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        2. Saw a posted video of hikers up in the hills backside of the fires (before hit all the news). Realized they were headed into a raging fire and turned around. Scrub Oak and other brush was taller than them, and very thick off the trail. Would not call them trees. Call them not evergreen, naked thick tall brittle *Rhododendron, intermixed with Vine Maple, Manzanita, and Scotch Broom. Can’t see over, can’t see through, can’t easily bushwhack through, let alone run through or over. Explains why until almost on top of the fire on backside of the hill they were hiking, they couldn’t see the fire. The stuff burns like greased lightening. The dried grasses do not help. Scrub Oak https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/quespp2/all.html Green version. Which right now, it isn’t.

          Different that what I had visualized. I was thinking dry climate semi dessert hills, so sagebrush/bitterbrush, etc., not that tall, lots of visibility, difficult to walk through, but doable (still burns fast). Wrong.

          *Yes, Rhododendrons can get very tall. Childhood home have a number of Oregon native versions that reach the top of the house (mom swears they got them from nurseries … um, not what I remember, but I was only 6 so what do I know? 😁🤷) Oregon Coast range is thick with them towering 8’+ under trees. Still not trees.

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          2. Scotch Broom is an official invasive species here and burns very aggressively, with lots of lightweight burning stuff thrown off from them if there’s any wind.

            Manzanita is classic “ladder fuel”, with lots of oil in that wood. It burns hot enough and long enough to get pines and such up in the Sierra foothills Gold Country to light off, and once you get the tops going it’s tough to contain.

            The hills where they allow grazing stay just grass. Up here on the south end of the SF Bay Area there are still grazing lands in the eastern Diablo Range hills facing SV, and they are visibly monotonous grass, with brush and trees only in the gullies where it’s too steep for the cattle. I can see which pieces of land still allow grazing and which are letting themselves go back to “natural” scrub from all the way across the valley just by the color.

            Those “golden hills” are the dried grasses, which are all invasive species as well, introduced in the Spanish horses feed and poop. The few native grasses that the California Native Plants enthusiasts are working to reintroduce don’t burn so much, because they did not evolve expecting any water through the eight months summer dry season and thus go dormant in spring instead of growing like mad and then sitting there all dead and burnable and, well, “golden”.

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            1. Re: Scotch Broom and Manzanita. I know. Why I used them as an analogy.

              Scotch Broom is invasive from Oregon Coast inland now into the west side of the Cascades. You can see it growing in virgin lava fields. On the west side of the coast range, it makes the land a lot more wildfire dangerous. Rhododendron, Salal, Salmon Berries, and Devils Club, etc., burn, but not as easily. Get more brush species on coast range as head east into the valley. Southern Oregon, south of Willamette valley, is a whole new ball game (let’s add a whole new brush mix).

              Manzanita we have on the passes and east side of the Cascades, with the Lodgepole, and Ponderosa, pines, etc.

              No one wants to see crown fires, ever. Which is what the 2020 Cascade fires had. One of the huge reasons nothing was stopping the fires.

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    4. I saw, as I think many of us have, aerial footage of what remains of Pacific Palisades. Aside from charred but still standing trees, it looks like a nuclear bomb leveled the place. No one individual’s mitigation efforts were going to save one individual’s property, never mind a whole neighborhood, in that disaster.

      I’d say there is plenty of room for Mr. Woods, and others, to decry government failures at multiple levels before they need to look to the beams in their own eyes. I’m not saying it’s meaningless, but in this case it would have helped only at the margins. (In other places in this continuing disaster, it could help more, and perhaps is.)

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      1. No new resivoirs in decades. Electric firetrucks. cut fire budget 25% in an era of ~5-10% inflation. DIE focus instead of readiness. Unusual rainy years allowed to flush out intot he Pacific instead of topping up resivoirs.

        I am amazed the CA government hasnt yet been … resettled on Venus.

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        1. There’s a reservoir in the works in SoCal. I can’t tell you exactly where, only that the engineering company is based out of Lone Pine near Owens Lake because that’s where the person I know is working on it.

          And there’s one that’s finally been approved up in the vicinity of wine country.

          Mind you, I’m in favor of aquifer replenishment and similar tricks, but it’s hard for individuals to work on that when water “law” is just a tangle of precedents, and some of those precedent holders will sue for their right to flush excess water out to sea.

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    5. I hear that California likes to fine people for taking preventative measures.

      Maybe an actor would be skilled enough to lie to the inspectors and say “No, it’s always been like this, there’s never been any brush (or whatever) here” and get away with it.

      The success of that, however, depends on one not having left a paper trail, such as the rental of brush removal equipment or a contract for landscaping services.

      (This is the case even in rural Flyoverlandia. One of the reasons my parents bought their own excavator was that every time they rented dirt moving equipment, a few days later, mysteriously, the state dirt police would visit their property and ask what they were doing and whether they’d paid the proper vig… excuse me, “gotten a dirt moving permit”, even when the dirt was not leaving their property.)

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      1. I don’t recall the timing (probably about 40 years ago), there was a nasty brush fire in Los Altos Hills, a very upscale town in (for values) Silicon Valley. Several houses were damaged or destroyed. One guy started his rebuild, planning on a tile roof. The planning people threw a hissy fit; only shake roofs were allowed there. Prettier, never mind the flammability. (This made the San Jose Murky News–somebody was well connected.) I never found the official resolution, but the house ended up with a tile roof. In blue. Sometimes it’s worth it to say BFYTW.

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      2. Sadly, there is usually at least one neighbor willing to play Gestapo and tattle.

        Lesson for aspiring novelists writing of clandestine political movements. There is usually at least one active informer, simply out of spite. Or stupid. Or both. And that is before you get to the ones turned through coersion. Jackboot fans, basicly.

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        1. There is usually at least one active informer, simply out of spite. Or stupid. Or both. 

          Or simply one who hasn’t reached the tipping point to action, and will turn in those who have (or the informer thinks have) as a preventive measure. Call them the Gentlemen Crying Peace.

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    6. Good news on that front. James Woods and his wife got to their property today to find the house still standing, and used pool water to put out small blazes in his yard and at some neighbors.

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      1. One thing I don’t get, and I admit to having near zero knowledge of firefighting let alone firestorm firefighting, so there may be a valid technical reason, but when the pumpers and tanker trucks could get no more water from hydrants, what prevented the firefighters from pulling water from backyard pools to fight the fires? Look at Zillow maps or any aerial maps of the area and you will see a lot of pools. Why not use that water?

        I saw a vid of firefighters reduced to using some sort of tote bag to put out spot fires, I assume because their onboard tank was too low to run hoses, and on another a homeowner was using their garden hose to refill a fire truck’s onboard tank, so municipal water was still running. There’s another Reuters video, linked below, of a guy who stayed and saved his house with his garden hose and a lot of luck, so obviously he had municipal water pressure too.

        And of course tone deaf municipal authorities have put out statements that the reason the hydrants went dry was because of “overuse”.

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        1. Fire hydrants supply water under pressure. Water in swimming pools has to be sucked out. Fire trucks are designed to work with fire hydrants, connected with non-rigid hoses that would collapse under negative pressure. Their equipment just isn’t suited to sucking water out of pools.

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          1. I know the helos pull from anything available. I had an acquaintance whose property has a small pond near one of the big fires in the Santa Cruz mountains as few years ago, and (after he said go ahead) he had both CalFire and contractor helos sucking up loads from his pond.

            I think most of the helos were grounded that first day in SoCal due to the winds.

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          2. Video of an owner using a specialized water pump, hose, and generator, to pull water from his pool, to water the brush on the other side of property fence, and knock back flames. Water continuously running, but when he didn’t need to put it on the brush or flames, he was running it back into the pool. Video also implied had other wildfire prevention going, like water sprinklers on the roof and spark arrests on house vents (too often the houses aren’t burning from the outside in, but sparks get in via house vents, and burn from the inside out).

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFHTwgjkh4s&t=40s

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            2. The other one that surprised me was thermal loading of drapes through the window glass getting them hot enough to ignite.

              I think they sell roll-down metal shutters to protect against that one.

              This one, along with the vent spark arresters and fire-smart landscaping design, was from an article I saw about all the features the folks in Paradise were adding to homes rebuilt there.

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          3. Many pumper trucks do have a rigid inlet pipe for water harvesting. Many rural departments rely on lakes and ponds and pools. and have them mapped, and solicit access ahead of time. A range I frequent made the access gate easy open for hte FD, so they can tap the lake at need. signage even says “dont block this firetruck ramp (dipstick).

            The problem is, pools are -tiny- compared to a structure fire, let alone a wildfire. One tanker refil is nice for a single structure fire, but pissing on a bonfire when the whole neighborhood is burining. If -everyone- had a big lake and or pond, and it is known and readily accessible, then yes, helps lots. problem is backyard pools might be 100 yards from where the truck can get without knocking something down. without a ready “driveway for big truck” access, might as well be on the moon.

            My employer at one site gravelled a right-of-way to ensure big firetrucks can get to the entire building. Huge expense, but made the local FD very, very happy. as did our radio repeaters. And the retention pond with a nice sloped access.

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            1. The rural FD I was on for a couple of years used to get water from the town’s supply by tapping a hydrant, but people objected. Town water people weren’t flushing the lines, so if we took water from a hydrant, folks would get silt in their house lines. [shrugs] We would then get water from the main water tower, and also from the river.

              Smaller rigs (the type 6, 200 gallon tank, on an F350 or larger class truck) would carry suction hose, or we could use a separate pump. We had a couple of surplus pumps, two that the retired navy CPO called a “handybillie”, [hadn’t been used, and I had no luck getting the newer one runnng…] as well as a small floating pump. Two stroke engine and it would sit in a pond (or calm spot on the river) and it would pump away. We tested it; not super fast, but it worked. The handybillies would have been good for larger fires, though getting on better terms with the town’s water people was optimal. I was out of the department (nasty political fight going on–we gave in and let the people who Really Wanted Control have it. Poor sods, they got what they wanted. OTOH, after a dozen years, that department is working well….) so never found out what the water solution turned out to be.

              The river by us us large enough to deal with helicopter filling, though I think it’s always been the Bambi Bucket type. One spot could work for a super-sucker, but we’re only 25 air miles from the airport/airbase/fire-support site, so that’s where the retardant runs get set up.

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      2. Good to hear. Maybe Olberman, that worthless waste of oxygen who was gloating that “climate denialist” Woods lost his house (he called it “karma”) will die of a stroke when he hears. I’d be happy to “water” the grass on his grave…

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        1. I guess climate “change” made the “unhoused encampments” burst into flames so often as well.

          Certainly not junkies slipping into the arms of Morpheus via chemical assistance while holding lit intoxicant devices or heating their vegan dinners on cobbled-together propane burners.

          From the media coverage one would think electric cars burst into flames more often than “unhoused encampments” instead of in reality vastly the other way around.

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          1. Notes few-day old story of an electric bus getting “battery tested” in Grant’s Pass, OR. Guess it failed the test; bus was a complete loss when the battery pack exploded and torched the thing.

            Last summer, TPTB were quite insistent that the homeless encampments in high grass depart the premises before the grass went up. Local encampments tend to be 3 season at most, so it’s pretty quiet right now.

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  6. making new things is something that needs to be done continuously just to keep up.

    That’s something I hadn’t thought about, although it makes perfect sense. It’s what creates the feedback loops that make both inflation and deflation so difficult to deal with.

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    1. Soapbox: This is why I get after the hippie type environmentalists who want to live in ‘perpetual balance with nature’, because ‘you can’t grow forever’.

      No, life is growth, because the opposite happens constantly, too.

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      1. They’re locked into the old “climax state” idea of ecosystem biology, where everything leads up to a certain collection of plants and animals, and then stays there. Serious ecosystem biologists and others ditched that idea about 30 years ago, or at the very least started adding so many “climax state IF X, Y, and Z continue to happen, or do not happen” statements that they might as well drop the term entirely.

        Eco-activists and Gaia worshippers* have yet to catch on, as usual.

        *With all due apologies to serious neoPagans, Wiccans, animists, and related faiths.

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          1. Willamette Valley resorts to trees in the valley short of farming (current) or fires. Latter the natives used to do to improve grazing.

            Giant Sequoias, Lodgepole Pine, are just two tree species whose cones do not open to release seeds without fire.

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  7. A good reason to buy high quality durable goods, e.g. tools, cookware, furniture, guns, before they’re too expensive to afford. Makes keeping up a bit more affordable.

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    1. Like most simple statements, that’s an oversimplification. However, I have found that “buy once, cry once” is typically a good philosophy to follow.

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      1. Don’t I know it. I’m dreading the day my 19-year-old car needs to be replaced. But I did pay cash and banked most of what I didn’t spend in payments, so it’ll be a short cry.

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        1. My only concern is that from now on, anything new will have a DIPSH!T switch.

          “You mean if you act like a dipsh!t they can shut it off?”

          “No, that ANY dipsh!t can shut it off!”

          And we ALL know it WILL be cracked in 3…2…1…
          And that’s NOT even counting all the corrupt dipsh!ts wearing uniforms.

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          1. -Not- happy with all the Cylon interfaces on my new ride. When the warranty lapses, will definitely killswitch it. Sooner if can figure out how wihout expensive consequence.

            Just, wow.

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            1. Funny thing. When the “engine off at idle” quit working on my ride (also quit finally on hubby’s, both Santa Fe’s FWIW), did some research. Nothing, and I mean Nothing, on reasons *why doesn’t. Pages and pages on ways to get around it for the various models, regardless of the brand, that have it.

              *Official version: Battery level has to be X. Vehicle can’t be too hot or too cold. Driver has to be belted in, before starting. Driver’s door harness has to be working. Actual fix? Replaced the computer. Didn’t stay fix.

              Second actual fix, drive it steady for > 1000 miles. Started working second day on our 2023 spring trip just after we crossed into Canada. OTOH our 2024 fall/winter trip, it never triggered. Difference of 5000 total trip miles and 2000 total trip miles, latter of which was < 900 steady miles to get to destination.

              Honestly? Given the actual mechanic fix results. Guessing just rebooting the computer would work. Out of warranty now, so if I knew where the computer was, I’d try it. OTOH don’t care about the feature enough to risk any fallout. Car needs to last more years.

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              1. Happily, my new ride lacks that “auto stall” crap. It does try to shut off half the cylinders at highway speeds on flat ground, but there is a trick for blocking it.

                also found “farm /off-road mode” for the belt buzzer. Chimes when started unbuckled, but shuts up and merely shows a warning light. Nice when working on it and in/move/out often.

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                1. The lane keep assist is easy to turn on/off. Works great when cruising for animal pictures, as long as the road is marked.

                  The other one I do like is the adaptive cruise control, that has distance keep. Although don’t quite trust it if see break lights suddenly deploying. Definitely it is a Do Not Use in snowy or heavy rainy conditions. It does cut out if the sensor cuts out. Where it can really come in handy is the stop/go plug that Beltline can become. Have to trigger it at or above 20 MPH, but it’ll work below that. Not always because I can control the foot petal without using breaks smoother than the feature. But sometimes it is handy.

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                  1. The Reader detests the adaptive cruise control on his F150 because it accelerates hard enough to trigger the turbo all the time. He loses 4 mpg oon the highway in traffic because of it.

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                    1. Really depends on traffic. High speed tight traffic? I don’t trust it. I start gentle break a whole lot sooner than the system does. High speed traffic that ebbs and flows at second setting (supposedly two car lengths), it works. Slow stop/go traffic, it depends on whether I can adjust against the stop/go manually so no actual stopping, but the system can’t. Unless traffic is < 20 MPH (which is the lower limit) also guilty of adjusting down to the actual traffic speed in minor plugs, then back up when the plug clears. Prevents the sudden slow down and jerky speed up turbo action.

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          2. Here’s hoping that some sensible deregulation will lead to (a) new cars with no internet connections, (b) aftermarket modifications to remove dipsh!ttery, and (c) a move away from expensive-to-repair electronic automotive geegaws. Every time I rent a late-model car, it’s a 10-minute dashboard scavenger hunt just to turn on the A/C and detoxify the radio.

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            1. More generally, MAGA: Make Automobiles Great Again.

              Even more generally, Make Appliances Great Again.

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              1. You mean, toilets that use enough water that the plunger can be relegated back to the garage?

                Laundry detergent that actually cleans without the need for all the pretreatments?

                Dishwashers that can be both fast and effective?

                Liked by 1 person

                2. And washing machines that use more electricity and less water (one is far more easy to procure than the other, at least where I am.)

                  A cat can dream, ja?

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            2. I’m fond of David Friedman’s quote in Hidden Order – The economics of everyday life: “Economists are often accused of believing that everything – health, happiness, life itself – can be measured in money. What we actually believe is even odder. We believe that everything can be measured in anything.”

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      2. Or buy quality, take care of it, then if you ever want to sell, it is worth something to sell.

        My two examples are the kid’s play structure. Sister went “inexpensive”. When kids done with it, it went to the dump. We bought the Rainbow (Redwood) Play Structure (minus the swing arm). Eight years later sold it for more than what we paid for it (about 3/4 what a new one was), and purchaser’s came to disassemble, and cart it off (still in use).

        Our pool table (hubby had always wanted one). Twenty two years later, sold it for what we paid for it (including delivery and installation). Purchaser paid to have professional pool table company come in to disassemble, move it, and reinstall it at their property. (No way were we dealing with the slate table base.) Most people wouldn’t bother.

        Both cases, yes we “lost money” because the money paid at purchase VS received at sell was not equal due to inflation. OTOH not something we bought that “just sat there”. They were used. Pool table not as much for the last 5 years, or so, which is why we sold it.

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  8. The only real wealth is in people working.

    Capital is accumulated wealth (including knowledge).

    The only purpose of wealth is to do things for people.

    Paying people to not work destroys wealth.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. Various natural things, such as fruits and animals, can also be wealth. Hunters and gatherers in rich locations are better off than those in poor ones.

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  9. I have a question that has bothered me, I know it’s off topic a bit, but here goes.

    Why hasn’t anyone Sued Sanctuary Cities for treating Naturalized convicted criminals differently than they do Illegal Criminals?

    I.E. they say they won’t refer criminal Illegals to ICE, but if they report regular criminals to other Government Agency’s do they thereby deprive those naturalized criminals of equal Protection when compared to Illegal Criminals?

    Can I get in on the lawsuit if one ever starts?

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    1. Another question just came to mind.
      If they report Illegal Crime as statistics to the Federal Agency’s, are they thereby in arrears for reporting to one Agency and not another?
      Can they be arrested for sedition or insurection for not following Federal Law?

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    2. Bless you, sir. I have to deal with a smackmouth NYC donk fanboi,and you have set up an epic one-liner.

      (as if a monk on “Kung Fu”): Ah, Kangaroo, all your frantic leaping about, ….. and yet Trump is Captain.

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        1. The Reader does as well. It was one of the few things on TV the Reader’s parents allowed him to watch at a young age. Then the Reader discovered books…

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            2. For some reason, I am now visualizing

              Pooh, in full battle-rattle, heaving grenades over the sandbags, “Oh, bother…”

              whike Piglet blasts away on an M2 heavy machinegun, laughing maniacly “Fee-fee-feee-feed the p-p-p-p-pig! BBBBwahHHHHaaa!”,

              while Eyore calls in a fire mission on the radio. “……of course its ‘danger close’…… Its always close…..”

              Liked by 1 person

                1. Winnie the Pooh is in the public domain now, so anthologies aren’t out of the question. Kung Pooh Fighting for martial arts. The Hundred Acre Jungle for war stories. Why let the horror writers have all the fun?

                  Liked by 1 person

              2. Where’s Tigger?

                My loyalty is given to the Disney Pooh, largely done before the queerification of the Mouse began.

                Tigger bouncing into a group of enemy troops, tossing off a hand grenade and bouncing out again?

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                2. Gets used generally nowadays, the M60s being almost entirely decommissioned worn-out junk.

                  And Piglet as MG gunner is just too obvious.

                  And a fireball is going to have M2s in the bunkers if at all possible, as almost nothing short of a Tank is .50 proof.

                  Also, the littlest guy on the biggest gun is an old trope.

                  Feed the Pig is now a generic “ensure uninterrupted MG supply of ammo” as your belt fed gun is 80% of a rifle squads firepower. In some schools of thought, the squad exists merely to safeguard, support, service, and supply the maneuvering GPMG team.

                  (grin)

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    3. Probably the wrong thing to do, which is why President Trump didn’t do this. But the short and sweet equivalent of his statement to the court/judge, and prosecutor, before sentencing should have been:

      “Thank you for this lawfare sham of a trail. You just got me reelected.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. ”Thanks, judge (especially if this idiot is one of the judges that insists on being called ‘your honor’). I would have won anyway, I would, absolutely, it was always going to be yuge, but you helped me out in several nonessential states.”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Heck. True or Not. “Solidified my win in all 6 swing states!”

          Which is why it would be inadvisable. Rubbing people noses in their colossal mistakes while still have power over you (before sentencing) is not a mistake President Trump will make.

          Liked by 1 person

        1. (From my internet wanderings) There was a south sea islander visiting Australia. The grim sour customs & immigration lady was asking questions “Have you ever been in prison”? His reply was “I didn’t realize that was still a requirement”.

          Liked by 1 person

  11. International Man Of Money question:

    When the government money counting entities calculate GDP and international trade balances and such, and a bribe…err, a payment comes in from overseas, and is split up between various US bank accounts, including 10% for the big…err, nevermind that – does that new balance show up as a “creation” of money within the US system, or is the “source” of that new balance somehow debited in the calculations due to it originating outside the US system with “private” entities overseas, and thus does it count against trade balance calculations for that overseas country of origin?

    Basically, does taking a bri…payment from overseas count for or against the GDP?

    Asking for my buddy Hunt…asking for an accomplic…err, just askin’.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. It makes no economic sense to pay one person to dig holes while also paying another person to fill them in

    …or to pay legions of government drones to fill out mountains of worthless government forms…

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      2. I think the physical infrastructure funded as part of the New Deal were the only positives, and they weren’t without negatives. I totally believe the economics study from a number of years back (from UCLA economists, IIRC) that the New Deal delayed recovery from the Great Depression by 7 years. And then there is the dubious constitutionality or outright unconstitutionality of much of it.

        The TVA mentioned below was one good example of useful infrastructure, though, as are the four greenbelt towns, and some buildings built by the WPA. Another prime example was the CCC. A good chunk of the infrastructure and facilities at many of the older city, state, and federal parks was built by the CCC, and much of which is still in use today.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Old Faithful Lodge, a lot of other park facilities (state as well), forestry projects, road building in parks and forests … Those were worth the cost. Some PWA things as well (sewer system and water supply, that kind of stuff.)

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          1. Rural Electrification. It got my grandparents (both sides) electricity in south AR / north LA, when there never would have been a profit turned.

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    1. Smith and Wesson (SWBI) is up slightly, which outside of the markets could be not a good sign.

      Probably images of swaths of burning stuff leading into a weekend led to investors and their AI seeking safer positions.

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        1. Never sweat the short term if you were not looking to sell just this moment.

          If you can buy, and are the long-term type, occasional dips can be bargains.

          Long-term view is long-term gain. Why I was able to buy a new ride istead of a rusted out Datsun.

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