Category Archives: Economics

I’m at ground zero

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Every day I go to work I see the park where this admitted Socialist Seattle Council person gave her speech the other night:

Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.

There are people, ironically, selling communist newspapers on many of the street corners near here.

One street over, 3rd Avenue, is what Barb L. calls, “Mugme Street”. The Seattle Police department says that location is one of the crime hot spots in Seattle. All the warning alarms go off in my head as I walk on that street to get to my bus. Things “just aren’t right” there. It is rare not to see at least two cops on that street when I briskly walk through “the danger zone”.

The SPD and King County Sheriff’s Office just finished doing some street cleaning in the park and on Mugme Street:

Just in time for the holidays, Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Office have wrapped up more than 30 drug dealers and suspected gang members following a months-long undercover operation around Westlake.

“This operation was about helping downtown businesses and their customers as well as Metro Employees and transit riders downtown,” says Sgt Thomas Flanagan from the KCSO’s Metro Police Unit.

In September, members of SPD’s Gang Unit, Narcotics, West Precinct Bikes Anti-Crime Teams and deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office’s patrol and Metro Units began Operation Happy Holidays after receiving numerous reports of drug dealing and gang activity near the 3rd Ave corridor. For months, police documented hand-to-hand drug deals and purchased crack cocaine, powder cocaine, pills, and marijuana in the downtown core and developed cases against 40 people. This week, police began making arrests.

Last night when I was leaving work I saw two police officers with a guy up against the wall just outside the parking garage for our building. They were going through his pockets.

This morning I looked around some. I didn’t see any of the usual shady people hanging around. Maybe it will stay clean around here for a few days.

I really wish I could earn the kind of money I’m addicted to back on the farm in Idaho. This is ground zero for criminals and, redundancy alert, Marxists.

Total speculation

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I’m an optimistic sort of guy, really. Kind of a contrarian because I get to explore and test my thinking and assumptions better that way, but I’d rather look at the bright side, all things being equal. So, what’s the possible bright side of the ObamaCare crap sandwich we have been handed? Just spitballing a few thoughts, here… Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Jonah Goldberg

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This has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

Jonah Goldberg
November 14, 2013
Obamacare Schadenfreudarama: It feels pretty good to watch the whole thing fail.
[H/T to John Balog in the comments here.

It is great to see that proponents of big government get whacked alongside the head with the clue-by-four of reality. Most of the time they are smart enough and deceptive enough to hide the tragedy of their misdeeds by diffusing it through time and layers of obfuscation that enable them to avoid taking the blame for the damage done. This time they reached way too far. It’s obvious to all but the most dedicated Marxists that this is a failure that directly affects millions and millions of people. And this time it will be much more difficult to blame on others.

Even these left wingers are jumping ship:

Of course there are those who view the Obamacare failure as a good thing:

Obama has a Second Chance to do what he should have done when first elected in 2008 with the criminally LOOTING Banking and Wall Street-scare EMPIRE (but which he didn’t have the guts to do then) —- he would have an amazing chance to do a rare ‘re-do’, and NATIONALIZE both the crooked looting Health-scare private corporate looting industry, AND go back and NATIONALIZE the even more obvious crooked looting Financial-Scare Industry — and insure (no pun intended) that important PUBLIC GOODS, like Health Care and Banking are removed from the hands of the PRIVATE CROOKS and returned to the hands of the democratic citizens who deserve not to be further ******.

Do not be complacent. This is a crisis and we must take advantage of it because you know the Marxists will if we don’t.—Joe]

Simple solutions from simple minds

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President Obama said:

With millions of consumers getting cancellation notices for their current health plans, President Obama announced Thursday that he will encourage insurance companies to continue offering their customers the same health plans next year.

“This fix won’t solve every problem for every person,” Obama said, saying he would consider legislative action to go further. But he appeared to rule out the sort of legislation that House Republicans are pushing, which would allow insurance companies to continue selling new policies, indefinitely, that would not comply with the law’s new consumer standards.

“I will not accept” legislation that would “drag us back to a broken system,” Obama said.

He and his supporters have no idea what they are doing.

  1. The insurance companies will be “encouraged” to break the law? They cannot legally still offer those plans.
  2. The people who will keep their old plans are those who are at low risk of needing expensive health care. Their premiums were to pay for those at high risk. Taking them out of the pool will mean the premiums for those remaining will have to go up.
  3. The insurance companies spent the last few years working to estimate the risks, set prices based on those risks, and restructure their organizations to work with the new mandates. It will take a similar amount of time to revert back and support the system they were forced to abandon.
  4. Restructuring of the insurance companies resulting in employees going to different jobs within the company or being laid off. Those changes cannot be undone in a short period of time. A lot of that expertise has been essentially vaporized by Obamacare.

Not only did the Democrats have no constitutional authority to inflict this upon the people but they had no idea what they were doing. They believe changing the laws of economics is as simple as changing the laws of the nation. The reality is that the laws of economics are as immutable as the laws of physics. To believe that Obamacare could make health insurance cheaper and more accessible to everyone is to believe perpetual motion machines are possible.

There will probably always be simple minded people that believe in perpetual motion and we have present day proof of that in those that voted for and support Obamacare.

Update: An insurance industry insider just told me: “Your post is exactly what we were just talking about. The magnitude is staggering.”

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Anonymous Conservative
June 14, 2013
Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory
[What the author of the post claims will happen is that as society collapses the liberal psychology (“r-selected” people) will be unable to handle it and non-liberals (“K-selected” people) will physically, environmentally, and evolutionarily dominate the situation and come out of the crisis far better than the liberals.

Ry and I were discussion something a bit tangential to this yesterday and what he said is valid. Paraphrasing, “We need to be careful reading this stuff because it matches what we believe and want to believe.”

Still, I have ordered the book and look forward to listening to it.—Joe]

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

Obama legacy of success

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President Obama has a large number of critics but he also has some astounding successes. These successes are unrivaled in magnitude by any other president and perhaps any other person who has ever lived.

He attempted to ban certain types of guns and became the greatest gun salesman of all time.

He made health insurance mandatory and millions of people became uninsured.

One big happy family

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This ought to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

The same company that made the healthcare.gov website (on a no-bid contract, naturally) is the same one that created the Canadian gun registry that cost roughly twenty times the original estimate and got scrapped a decade later after being found to be both useless and seriously defective.

But they want us to just trust their good intentions, ’cause they are so smart and transparent. Yeah, riiiight.

Incentives

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Incentives matter. People pay attention to them. The larger the incentive, the more effective it is. Look at Obamacare. You get heavy subsidies right up to exactly 400% of the poverty line. Then you get nothing, you go directly from being heavily subsidized to being the subsidy, all for that extra dollar in income. This might easily mean for a married couple that they pay an extra $10,000 a year for the same health insurance policy (more or less depending on specifics, but this number is not atypical). Then look at the fact that a lot of employers are shifting to providing employee-only health insurance, and dropping coverage for spouses and dependents.

If a working couple are each making $30k a year, they receive a significant subsidy. If one gets a promotion that comes with a 10% raise ( $3,000), then it kicks them into zero-subsidy land and the net loss of $7,000 a year. The incentive for divorce in order to make ends meet is powerful, because if they divorce, then they both qualify for a bunch of other programs, too, which would effectively boost their effective incomes considerably. Meeting bills vs not meeting bills, being able to afford vacation vs not… This ACA thing is a powerful incentive that, if it stands more than two years, will drive a HUGE boom in divorce and application for “single parents with kids needing government assistance.”

ObamaCare is the most destructive bill to American society I’ve ever witnessed pass congress.

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

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The Tea Party is made up of people who can do math.

Larry  Correia
October 17, 2013
The scientific Tea Party
[Citation here.

Of course they can do math! The Tea Party was a response to Obama Care and the massive government spending. And you probably didn’t even need to “do math” to figure that out. Mere arithmetic should be more than adequate for the task. But those on the left had to think of the Tea Party as inferiors in order to justify the condescending attacks. Apparently those on the left can’t handle or don’t want to be bothered with the arithmetic.

I don’t remember where I saw it but I remember reading many years ago something to the effect that politics was much too important to be subject to the impersonal rigors of mere numbers. Whoever said seemed to believe they had expressed some great truth. My thought was, and is, that numbers are a measure of reality. If you can’t express something in numbers then it’s just opinion. There is, of course, no guarantee that any given set of numbers reflect reality but if you can’t or won’t express something in number then it’s a pretty sure bet that it’s an opinion without basis in reality. And if your opinions don’t have any basis in reality you have no, zero, nada, zilch, business being involved in politics.

But that’s not the political system works. Unfortunately reality can only be ignored for so long. If reality could be ignored then something like this would make sense (H/T to ubu52 who said, “It’s total Fail to look at this as a math problem”). Where ‘this’ is the deficit. I was tempted to respond but I’m not sure the intended recipient would (or could) understand. If the deficit isn’t a math (or arithmetic) problem and the amount of spending being greater than revenue isn’t a valid concern then why not just print enough money that everyone in the country (or heck, why not the entire world?) receives $100 an hour for 40 hours per week “following their dreams” or whatever? Everyone could retire and live happily ever after. We could forget the debate over Obamacare because everyone could afford to pay for their own health care or buy the insurance of their choice, right? Everyone could afford to pay for their own education or not bother with it, right?

Numbers matter. If you can’t do arithmetic then you are going have some serious problems with math. And math is what bonds us to reality. If you can’t do math you don’t really understand reality. And that Tea Party members understand math and science better than those that can’t do simple arithmetic is no surprise.

What the Yale Professor who “discovered” what was blindly obvious to me and I would have thought most people didn’t conclude, which is also obvious to me, is that those who denigrate the Tea Party are those who truly deserve the condescending insults, jeers, and casual dismissal. And we have the numbers to back that up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jon Gabriel

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Math doesn’t care about fairness or good intentions. Spending vastly more than you have isn’t good when done by a Republican or a Democrat. Two plus two doesn’t equal 33.2317 after you factor in a secret “Social Justice” multiplier.

debtchartfw2

Jon Gabriel
October 21, 2013
The Reality of America’s Finances
[H/T to son James for showing me this.

Sometimes I think that part of the problem is that people think that math, even arithmetic, is subject to opinion. People will just proclaim, “I don’t agree with that”, and they believe they have refuted your numbers.

In many ways politics is faith based. The democrats have a tendency towards being economic tyrants and the republicans have a tendency towards being moral tyrants. Neither really understand principles. Or if they do their principles are to destroy the principles they can and ignore the rest.

With their policies having no principles it should come as no surprise they also believe that numbers are subject to whatever whim they have this election cycle. Numbers are just something you use to make your opinion appear valid. And everyone’s opinion is just as good as anyone else’s so that must mean that everyone’s numbers are just as good as anyone else’s.

Principles? They don’t even understand the concept of a principle.—Joe]

Shakedown?

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I got a request from a guy who works for one of the gigantic firearms magazine publishing companies. They put out several major gun magazines, all of which you know well. He wanted high resolution images showing off some specific products of ours. I was heading out of town at the time and could not change my plans, no way, no how, and so I went to GREAT lengths, using digital back-channels, running into road blocks, fiddling this and that, and finally I got him his images in short order. It was a pain, but when a major publisher indicates that they want to run an article that shows off your products, you jump, right? So I jumped. I know the guy. He’s a big name in a huge industry– Why shouldn’t I jump?

Days later, after hearing no reply, I get this;

“Thank you for the images.

I am also interested in getting one of those [product name redacted] for myself…

Let me know what I would owe you.”

No mention of any specific, up-coming article in any specific magazine, just an implied request for a special personal deal on some special hardware (nod nod, wink, wink).

So I went through all that dorking around just for this?

This ain’t my first rodeo, bitches– I have decades of experience dealing with people attempting to use their very real influence for personal gain, and with those who accommodate them at every opportunity. Many of them have been in public employ too. I’ve also seen more than few of them fall flat on their faces for doing it.

Most people in any business, and all industries have this sort of thing going in spades, take the position; “Aw, just go with it. Don’t be a fool– It’s how the game is played and there’s nothing you can ever do to change it.” I’ve had it said to my face.

Uh huh. Well consider this post my reply to that, and count your blessings that I haven’t mentioned your name and your employer. Yet. Now let the reprisals begin, if you’re dumb enough. I’m ready.

Pre conditioning

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I get a lot of e-mail spam, and I work in the firearms accessory business, so when I saw a message from a car dealer I read it as “Full Auto Inventory Clearence”.

“Hmm. Someone must have a lot of machineguns…”

Actually it read; “Fall Auto Inventory Clearence” but my pre conditioning made me read it wrong.

That’s just a tiny example of pre conditioning determining someone’s perception. It happens all the time to most of us, in some way or another.

We played a trick on my brother years ago. We wired up a whistling sky rocket firework and clamped it under his work bench. When he came in, we told him we suspected something was wrong with his bench lamp. When he turned on his bench power and all hell broke lose, he was scrambling in a panic, amongst the fire, the smoke and noise, to turn off his bench lamp. We had pre conditioned him to respond in a completely useless (and funny – to us) manner.

Yeah, funny funny hah hah, but this sort of thing is done to us in politics and social engineering, and we do it to ourselves.

More on redistribution

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Charity is a vitally important component to any civilized society and as such, government should be kept completely out of it.

The first amendment touched upon the concept that a most highly important societal aspect or institution should be hands-off (no government involvement) but it is not well understood. We tend to focus on the particulars (religion, speech, the press, redress and assembly) but ignore the principle behind it.

Gun business

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If the economy is important then government shouldn’t be attacking such a successful industry.


Created by OnlineMBA.com

But the evidence indicates our government does not care about the economy as well as being hostile to gun ownership.

Something to think about

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Via Zero Hedge:

20130905_nixon1

20130905_nixon2

Bill, in a comment here, says, “a 1911 costs essentially the same, in gold, as it did in 1911, and 1945, and 1960, and 2000.”

I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this other than holding onto dollars is a futile attempt to retain wealth.

Ammo arrival

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The UPS guy showed up the other day. I didn’t remember ordering anything recently, so I briefly wondered what the spousal unit bought. Then I saw the box, and I had to chuckle. It was a MidwayUSA box. With some ammo. That I had ordered last year. Now that’s a backorder.

Another Quote of the Day – USAA Insurance claim representative

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“We don’t make decisions based on common sense” – USAA Insurance claims representative, total loss department. That was pretty obvious by the time he said it. I told him it was going to be a quote of the day.

In June an old man pulled right in front of us in his pickup, from a cross road on our right, while we were at speed in our pickup on highway 26 in central Washington State. WHAM! My 15 year old daughter was driving on her learner’s permit. She could not have done anything to prevent a hard hit, but I think she saved that old man’s life.

You never really know what you’ll do in a situation like that, but I tell myself not to swerve for deer or anything else unless there is a real need to. Hit the damn deer and stay on the road, or hit that car in front of you and avoid a head-on, if it’s a choice between the two. I’ve seen it go very badly when people swerve. She swerved. If she hadn’t, if she’d gone in a straight line, that old man would have been squashed like a melon, I think. As it was we hit corner to corner instead of hitting him in his driver’s door.

I was telling the claims rep that since I had the trans rebuilt and replaced the engine, the hubs, the breaks, etc., that 309K odo reading meant very little, that the newer and shinier pickup I replaced it with actually has “Less useful life left in it, it cost me more than twice what I’m being offered for the totaled truck, and that I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that the injured party (I) should be made whole, within reason, to the fullest extend possible, and we’re not even talking about our ruined vacation.”
“Where did you get that verbiage?” He asked in reply.
“What do you mean?”
“Where did you get that verbiage?” He repeated. Well how do you answer that question? He seems to think that I’m reading from some book, or repeating someone else’s words, which I wasn’t. So rather than argue about that;
“It’s common sense” I told him. That’s when he came out with the money quote.

Yeah, so I’m out thousands of dollars after I take their settlement. Insurance markets, and the whole set of industries surrounding them, like the towing business and the body repair business, medical care, et al, are completely distorted. In a proper world it would be between me and the offending party, and if things fell apart there it would be in the courts, and the insurance company’s role would be to write a check afterwards (or up to the value of the policy). But this is the messed up world of scammers, politicians (but I repeat myself) and Progressives (and again I repeat myself) and so the party writing the check is the same one determining the value of the loss.

I guess that what we were supposed to do, rather than tell the EMTs at the scene that we were all OK and happy to be alive, if a little bruised, and go against their advice to take a ride in and get checked out by doctors, was instead to complain about pain, act all messed up an carry on and so forth, get some prescriptions and braces and all that, like most people, and scam the insurance company for all that pain and suffereing, woe-is-me-I-have-to-take-three-weeks-off-work-and-I-might-have-to-file-for-disability crap. But we didn’t, and won’t.

Quote of the day—NightShade09

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Karl Marx hated the USSR and what it did under the claim of his ideas.

Don’t believe me? Look it up.

NightShade09
August 4, 2013
Comment to The Invention of Ideology
[I’m quite suspicious of people who claim they can “channel the spirit” of someone. Defending the claim that it doesn’t happen is trivially easy. Hence I think the only look up required is that Marx died in 1883 and no government could claim the title of USSR until sometime after the revolution in 1917.

But Marxist defenders don’t really need facts. They just have to “understand” the benefits of communism even if they can’t understand the simplest and best tested of economics theories.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Francisco d’Anconia

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So you think that money is the root of all evil?

Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

Francisco d’Anconia
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
[I have a silver round on my desk that was a gift from son James a few years back that sums it up far more succinctly than Rand’s character did:

IMG_7677IMG_7676

Get your round here.—Joe]