Ken Nelson

I contemplate the lack of  “real” in “money” sometimes.  We really don’t have real  money any longer. We print ‘trillions” of nothing, except we don’t even really “print” them – the Fed just changes some decimal points.   And, I wonder, when it collapses how bad will it be? 

I got to thinking about this when I read “Gold as a Last Link to Reality” on Economic Noise:

Having had plenty of horrible experience with infinite money, the American Founders knew all this and so insisted on commodity money. But their descendants lacked such experience, and so it came to seem primitive to let the money supply be determined by how much metal could be pried out of the ground each year. Indeed, it is primitive. It just seems that any more sophisticated money inevitably becomes too sophisticated, and the result of that is far worse than primitive — predatory, corrupt, totalitarian, and unreal.

The Founders knew.  About money, like so many other things, they knew.  But they weren’t smart enough to write a lasting system to protect us.  They let us (We the People) CHANGE the Constitution, perhaps necessarily, but far too easily as it turns out.   And the results will be bad.

Very bad.  It has to be.  But is gold the answer?  

I’m dubious. I think skills – real world skills, like welding, farming, fixing things will be valuable. Fuel and  ammo will be valuable. Martial skills will be valuable.  Middle management of financial derivatives traders?  Not so much.   A dump truck full of gold? What would I do with it?  I’d take the dump truck.

A reasonable strategy might be to load up on debt and own lots of “useful” things for when it all goes south.  And learn to make things and food.  And how to protect things and food.

I would dearly love to have a currency that is not subject to financialization and fiat. Note that gold isn’t immune to this – much more gold is owed than is actually available.

That is why ideas like BitCoins, impervious to whim and manipulation, appeal to me.  And to be “perfect” – multiple BitCoins – all competing for reliability, security and steadfastness.

Time and again we’ve proved that smart people aren’t smart enough, or honest enough, to be trusted or monitored.  We need a currency system that cannot be manipulated except by the actions and decisions of billions of free choices.

The metaphor would apply if we bought the RV for the oldster driving it from future money.

I like the Tea Party. I go to Tea Party events. And at every one of them I meet morons that seem just as stupid as somebody I’d meet at an SEIU event.

Confirmation comes in today’s McClatchy poll where 70% of Tea Party members polled said that Medicare and Medicaid shouldn’t be cut to reduce the deficit.

The Tea Party skews old and when I’ve been at these events I’ve wondered what they hell they wanted to cut.  They are getting all the money anyway.  They voted it to themselves from the future.

I’ve left the Tea Party events disheartened about our nations future largely because of the simply moronic attitude they take that we can just ignore the money they are getting, and somehow cut out “waste” and “fraud” and cover the bills.

They haven’t a clue.

Yet… they are the best we have, which alas, isn’t saying much while it says all you really need to know.

That’s the rumor for today. So far, just rain though…

May the toast be with you!

 
Pesky volcano shown from ISS

I’m really starting to not like these volcano things…

It has been hypothesized by a volcanologist at Los Alamos, that the Dark Ages were triggered by agricultural collapse following the 535AD eruption of Krakatoa.

Anyway, global warming scares me not. But volcanoes… they are the Freddie Kruger of environmental threats.

 
Somethings you support in spite of economics

Obama has a bus he throws inconvenient people under. His 20 year pastor. His grandmother. The SDL member he allied with as he started his political career. If you stand between this narcissist and his vision for his historic self, you will see the bus as well.

Over the last year, and especially over the last couple months, Israel has figured out it is meant for the bus.

Ultimately, Obama dumping Israel means war. Israel isn’t isolated Jews spread throughout Europe – it has weapons, a military, and – now – a political leadership recognizing what is happening and vowing to now go down without a fight. This week Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke from Israel as Obama sat around a table with 46 feckless countries ignoring Iran:

“Today, 65 years after the Holocaust, we must say in all honesty that what is most outrageous is the absence of outrage. The world gradually accepts Iran’s statements of destruction against Israel and we still do not see the necessary international determination to stop Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. But if we have learned anything from the lessons of the Holocaust, it is that we must not remain silent and be deterred in the face of evil.

Israel may have no oil. Israel may not lend us money. But I’ll stick with them no matter what the other amoral regimes in that region do.  They’ve proved they are worth it.

My Israeli policy?  Stick with them.

My middle eastern policy?  Stick with Israel, and don’t piss us off – because I just may kill you and take your oil for free. Palestinians – you lost, shut up and deal with it.

Real politik for sure.

Without one religion anyway

Some, Commenter Carl for instance, rant on about how Christians want to control every move you make. They ignore Muslims that actually do want that level of control. And they ignore nanny statists that force you to separate your trash, drive slower than you should have to, and steal more than 1/2 your income.

I do not lose sleep at night over Christians. I know any group that large will have some kooks, but they are nowhere near power. But I know, right now, as I write, there are  hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of progressives and liberals plotting to use the force of government to make me do something they think I should do, or not do something they don’t want me to do. Or not eat what I want to eat.

The latest assault comes from Nanny Central, New York state, where a law has been introduced to ban the use of SALT in preparation of restaurant foods.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

No… I’m not worried about the “Christians”.  Their faith centers on free will.

I just wish our government still did.

The Arctic Oscillation Index and the North Atlantic Index are acting up and that means it is GONNA GET COLD!  For the next couple weeks anyway:

For cold of a variety not seen in over 25 years in a large scale is about to engulf the major energy consuming areas of the northern Hemisphere.

Handy tips…

Most Americans don’t know what our founders were trying to create 

In my last post, I talked about root causes of our national dilemma– blaming not our leaders but “we the people” (us) for our current state.

Let me cite a recent example that would have astounded any of our founders. Wouldn’t they have modified a few things in their plans if they knew they system of checks and balances they were creating would eventually hold a majority of people feeling that someone making this statement was competent to be President:

"The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence.

Yet most people, whether they voted for her or not, would say Hilary Clinton was competent to be President.

Amazing!  A majority of people think that someone that would confiscate profit could be a valid President of what Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin and Adams created.

So why do we, as I so eloquently put it, “suck”?  We strayed from our original national purpose, life, liberty and the individual “pursuit of happiness”,  put our hands in each other’s pockets, confused the merits of schooling with the public provision of it and through the blessings of our founders initial inertia and geography ended up affluent but very very confused.

Can we change? Education is the key. In my last post I maintain it will be the school of hard knocks. 2010 may be our last chance to end school early.

 
How did “we the people” come to this?

Peggy Noonan sees no reason to be optimistic that America’s ruling class can improve the coming years:

We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.

I share her disdain for our current political class.  I’d raise her a “contempt” or two as well.

I’m of an optimistic, pessimistic and pragmatic bent about all this.

Optimistic – the problems we face are very fixable. We know what kind of economic, scientific and political system works to build wealth and improve life for all.   Sure we have problems, but we can grow our way out of them – if we just choose to.

Pessimistic – “if we just choose to”… so why don’t we?   Noonan aims at a small target above – our “leaders”.  Me, I aim at who chooses them. Us.  We stink. I’m not some Pollyanna about the greatness of America. Most American’s are pretty stupid about what would work to fix our problems. Most Americans are members of special interests dividing a pie: unions, or government, or teachers. A majority of “us” are credit addicted, and/or under used the amazing educational opportunities handed us.  Most Americans could not hold their part in a cogent discussion of America’s founding and why America has succeeded thus far.   We are the problem. And how can we change “we”?

Pragmatic – “How can we change we”… There are simple procedural changes that would fix many of our woes, in spite of ourselves. For instance, getting rid of the 16th & 17th amendments would cause a surge wealth creation, freedom,  innovation and see an attendant rise in life improvement for all.   But, pragmatically, what are the chances we can get rid of the succor of the corruption that afflicts us? Zero. So, pragmatically, what will change us?  Turmoil.  Strife.  Stagnation. Political separation.  We will change because we will be forced to.

 Get ready for it.  It’s coming whether you want it or not.

He even interrupted KenNelson.com  earlier!

(via http://kanyelicio.us )

The most recent stats on gender and college surprised me.

In 4 year schools, 58% of graduates are women. And in 2 years schools, it is even higher – 62%.

I think some of this will even out as economic opportunities to less educated men decline in our poor economy. Lacking homes to build they will go to school again.

This page has interesting stats on the plight of men. Like this one:

By the age of 36, women outnumber men.

and this depressing one:

By the age of 100, women outnumber men eight to one.

The gap, which is increasing should concern us. Nothing is more dangerous than a large group of disenfranchised men. Ask African American or Palestinian culture how that is working out.

M3 knows what to do with this.

Commenter Carl, always concerned about me going thirsty or not being able to splash in my pool, sent this interesting link about a new desalination technique called M3. Desalination is basically removing salt and other icky minerals from water. Desalination is simple. What is hard is knowing what needs to come out of the water. The expensive part of desalination is testing/monitoring to know what you are getting in and thus what you need to do to get fresh water out.  M3 does that in a revolutionary new way that is small scale and energy efficient:

"In this specific field study by our team, in the first part of the reverse osmosis process, 65 percent of the water that was fed in was recovered as drinking water, or potable water," said Yoram Cohen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and lead investigator on the team. "We can potentially go up to 95 percent recovery using an accelerated chemical demineralization process that was also developed here at UCLA. This first field study with the M3 was a major achievement and the first phase of our high-recovery RO process demonstration program."

So good luck M3…. and, a special note for our Socialist visitors,  a big company with profit motive will certainly get this out to people faster than government allocating it politically.

The US government is the only customer that audits me. They are the only US customer I’ve ever had that took months and months to pay me. They are the only customer I’ve ever had arrears more than $300,000 dollars. The largest other one (from France) was $25K.

The government is the only customer that makes any business errors I’ve made with them a crime. They are the only customer that can put me in jail.  They are the only customer that unilaterally dictated what profit I could make.

Why would I want them to jail me for making my own health care decisions?

Am I surprised that “Cash for Clunkers” isn’t paying the dealers in the promised 10 days?  Am I surprised that their requests for reimbursement are being rejected for minor paper work mistakes? I’m not surprised at all, I’ve been there done that.

If you run a business of a certain size, you become a government target that gets lots of visits from various government takers.  Here in St. George this usually happens in February, when the auditors in frozen Salt Lake City dream of golf in Utah’s Dixie.  

So when I think about government run health care I imagine the IRS auditors that have come calling.   I imagine the DCAA auditors. The state auditors.  The contracting officers. Each of them were variations on the same “you can’t…, I can’t…” theme.   When I compare my experiences with them to my very positive experiences with Intermountain Health Care (my insurer) it is obvious to me that the government folks arrived not caring a whit about me, but at LEAST the IHC folks wanted to keep me as a customer.

The rule for a government you can’t move away from or say no to… have them do ONLY what ONLY government can do.  Vermont sucked both in winter weather and in year round government, so I moved. I can’t move from the US, as tempting as it may be with the current regime.  So yes, I’d like them to build interstate highways, but no, I don’t want them anywhere near health care.

Now I can write about this all I want.  It feels vaguely cathartic, but in the end it is peeing in the wind. They don’t care. Obama doesn’t care. Arlen Specter doesn’t care. Jim Matheson doesn’t care. They each have their own narcissistic goals that values their modest successes well above any cost to the nation.

Ultimately, though, this ends up in violence. Anywhere a population’s choice is removed, violence happens.  Initially the government will use violence to force the choices made by present corrupt politicians on future populations . The population will respond in kind.

That is just how it works.

I hope those that build from our ashes understand the dynamics that brought us down so quickly. I hope they understand that our Constitution, while initially nearly perfect, was virused when an amendment was added that gave the GOVERNMENT rights.  The 16th amendment marked the beginning of the end.  By giving the government unfettered access to present AND FUTURE wallets, the amendment doomed us.

Slow at first, but speeding up in our lives and collapsing on our kids.

The above equation looks pretty simple, and it is, but in it lies the keys to our modern world.  Put simply, the above explains how to make electricity.

There are lots of types of energy: potential, thermal, kinetic, electric, electromagnetic, to name some well known types.  And any type of energy can be transformed into another form.  So, you can take kinetic energy and turn it into electromagnetic, as an example.

Popular examples of energy transformation are “burn gas, push cylinder, get horse power” and “gravity moves water, water turns turbine, get electricity”.

The easy ones have been well sorted out by now, but opportunities to transform unused energy to useful energy abound.

My daughter, age 9 at the time, came to me with a complicated set of drawings on paper, that basically were a windmill hosted inside a car. I complimented her on the idea, but used it as a teachable moment on conservation of energy – explaining that the pushing on the windmill would cost the car an equal amount (at best) of what it generated. We decided that tying the windmill to the brakes, and  exposing it to air when the brakes were applied, would be the only way to beat the equation. But neither of us had the math chops (any longer) to figure out just how much it would help.

I urged her to think about what in the car has to move, but that could be captured and converted to energy.  She thought about it a bit and said “bumps” and “brakes”.

I explained that brake heat has been used in cars to generate electricity.

But to my knowledge, bumps “or shocks absorbers” had not and so we doodled around with that idea a bit and then called it a day.

But some MIT students took it all the way. And they have created “genShock” – shock absorbers that not only act as shocks but run a hydraulic generator to make power so the vehicles alternator doesn’t.  That saves fuel. And it can increase vehicle range by up to 10% in some electric vehicles, 2-4% in regular cars, and 8% in military vehicles.

Good idea! 

I wonder what other necessary kinetic energy is out there waiting to be transformed for our use?  To my knowledge brake synchronized windmills have not been done yet, I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas out there waiting to be thought of.