A Holiday

Even though the stock market is open, it's a holiday for the common man, hence I will take off today: no post.

Happy New Year!

We Survived 2010

Despite all the high paid pundits and bloviators, 2010 was NOT a national disaster. Roubini, Meredith Molotova and that ilk were wrong. The stock markets made good gains. The economy stopped going down. Unemployment stopped going up. Massive new defaults have NOT occurred. The corporate bond market rallied hugely. The commercial real estate market stabilized and has rallied some.

Not all is good.

Housing prices are bouncing along the ground: no rebound is in sight, but price levels are rather affordable so further large drops will likely be temporary foreclosure rinses.

Europe is still sorting out possible solutions ... and ignoring the obvious solution, viz. becoming a United States of Europe.

Farmers & miners are making fine profits after decades of suffering; and people are griping about that.

Congress continues to be a comedy show ... or is it a cage match? No serious debate occurs regarding what kind of nation we want to be and become.

Obama is playing in Hawaii; he's now had two years in office and has shown zero ideas or leadership.

The Republicans want to turn the financial and corporate Vikings loose to raid on all of us.

The Democrats wants to turn all of us into government employees.

Neither party talks about a vision - an eschaton - for America in the 21st century.

How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing the end point for our path? How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing where we are now?

Our "leaders" have lost their way. Is any Teddy Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan on the horizon? Nope. Those people has visions of where they wanted to lead the nation; they had good understanding of what the problems were in their time.

I will give you two metaphors for a paradigm of what America need to do.

First, from John Bunyan's great book, Pilgrim's Progress. The pilgrim recognized the problems where he was and knew where he wanted to go, viz. to the great city of salvation. He struggled along a path with many, many traps and pitfalls and evildoers. This book was read by the great leaders who created and saved America: Franklin, Washington, Lincoln. Its allegory applies now.

Second, from science and the work of Richard Feynman (cf. the book, A Path Integral Approach to Quantum Mechanics or his seminal paper, Feynman, R. P. (1948). "The Space-Time Formulation of Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics". "Reviews of Modern Physics" 20: 367–387. A particle - ANY particle, with its beginning and end states set, combines all possible paths (and I do mean all - over all of space and time) to take the optimal path.

The metaphors here are definitive, spanning faith AND science: The US people - and especially its leaders - must study where we are and have vision where we want to be, and then choose the optimal path. We must combine epistemology - the study of knowledge - with ontology, the study of being - to find our path. True leadership does not come from the technocracy; it's not from technology. It's not from sloganeering. Good Leadership - the adjective is crucial - is really applied metaphysics: it applies knowledge of where we are and where we want to be in the future, then chooses the optimal path.

All these ideas are from the classics of the past 2,000+ years: Aristotle, Bunyan, Feynman. They knew these concepts that drive both the physical world and the world of the minds of men. We don't have to invent them; all we - the people - have to do is read, learn and do. Three little action verbs have the answers.

Read, learn & do.

Next year I will start with a series of posts on reform.

Word of the Day

"Zaftig" - adjective [$100] slang
Zaftig means 1. (of a woman) having a pleasantly plump figure; 2. full bodied, well proportioned. [from Yiddish 1935-40 literally juicy, succulent]
Sentence: That great beauty of the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe, had a zaftig build that modern culture might regard as fat. That's just wrong. Men - heterosexual men - are hard wired to like curves. The modern culture of excessive thinness is learned behavior from the fashion magazines that have been dominated by gay designers, who prefer boyish figures, for decades. That culture needs to be rejected; it harms young women and causes much unhappiness and pain as people try to do the unnatural. Some fat is good.

Still Moving Snow

The Bunker is not yet cleared of snow, but after today it should be all systems normal. News flow is sloooooooooooooooow. Krypto has no trades. Mrs. B is looking for good buys in municipal bonds.

In short, I have nothing enlightening to write today, so will shut up.

Word of the Day

"Pococurante" - noun, adjective [$100] a T. S. Eliot word, from Italian; plural is "pococuranti". Also, "Pococurantism".
Pococurante means (noun) a careless, indifferent person; (adjective) caring little, indifferent, non-chalant.
Sentence: A pococurante and his money are soon parted.

Lack of Memory

Most media outlets do disservice to their viewers when putting on "experts" and pundits. Why? They seem to almost never check the track record of predictions and forecasts given by those people in the past. This is particularly true for economists and bears. After the panic of 2008 and the Obama bust in early 2009, we heard endless screeds by pundits like Roubini and Meredith that the markets were going to get worse as another wave of disaster was coming. Hello? It didn't. A huge rally followed.

Similarly, a few years ago when copper prices hit $4, then dropped a lot, Gartman pontificated that we would never see $4 copper prices in our lifetimes. Uh ... copper prices are now about $4.30/lb.

When oil prices were approaching $150/barrel, pundits said it was demand, not hedge funds and pension fund buying. That was demonstrably wrong as US gasoline demand numbers at the time proved, but the bloviators kept on bloviating. And then oil collapsed as the beefers sold.

Facts do matter. And people need to use their memory to calibrate pundits and experts. They are not wizards or seers. There are many Nobel laureate economists. They use that credential to claim some authority, and get paid for giving speeches and writing popular opinion articles and to give interviews. Yet they disagree. That means the credential is either for work unrelated to their opinions OR is meaningless and no value in assessing the quality of their opinions OR BOTH. In both cases, you can recognize that it adds nothing to evaluating the correctness of their opinions.

You've got to do some thinking yourself and read. Get facts - hard facts. just listening to the blatherers and bloviators will lead to terminal ignorance. Don't be a cabbage watching only the Boobatron [aka TV] for your information. Do some work yourself and read. And use your memory to calibrate the pundits.

Word of the Day

"Torpor" - noun [$10]
Torpor means 1. a condition of mental or physical inactivity or insensitivity; 2. lethargy, apathy
Sentence: Don't let you mind wallow in torpor watching the Boobatron for hours - read !

Ice Planet

A dimensional warp occurred and I now live on the Ice Planet. Wind, very cold, snow everywhere. Very beautiful in the woods.

One foot down and about 8 hours to come. At least it's fluffy stuff. - light to lift & throw.

Now the work begins ...

First mission: clean a path for the dogs in the backyard.

No word of the day.

Signs and Portents

Ancient peoples would probably say that the Lunar Eclipse last night was a sign of ... something. Good or Bad omen?

Hmmm.

Europe is covered with snow & ice. They have shown much hubris for years, thinking their computer models can foretell the future. Is Europe being punished?

Ms. Market continues dancing on the table. Will she tire soon, or keep taking off pieces of clothing, one at a time? All good things must come to an end.

Bunkerman continue to ride that bull elephant to the next waterhole. He's often seen picking fruit off tree as he passed, putting it into storage baskets for the next tough period. You'd expect that from Bunkerman - he has a backup to his backup.

The Street wants to get back to its old antics. I saw an announcement of a new multi-billion private equity fund. Street paymasters are looking for loopholes and winks to go back to the gross pay practices of the past.

The public? Joe & Jane Public seem to want to enjoy a good Christmas.

2011 brings many, many deferred decisions closer. Confusion seems to reign - no one has a clear idea of where to lead the nation. Fragmentation and sloganeering dominate the public debate.

Somehow a vision needs to be elucidated and transmitted to the people, a vision that they will understand and accept as an END POINT for where to lead the nation. The END POINT is an eschaton - the end of all things and time - where we want the nation to BE in a decade or two.

We know where we are now. At least those who look as data and facts do know. A friend sent me a link to an illuminating, fact-filled talk by Elizabeth Warren:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

I recommend it highly. The nation is troubled.

What is our desired END POINT - our national eschaton?

Simply, to be a happier people. What brings more happiness? Peace, prosperity, security, fraternity. Not for one person or a few, but in the aggregate for all. Aristotle (cf. Nichomachean Ethics) would say such aggregate happiness would arise from some optimum midpoint between two extremes. That would be the place of virtue. The extremes to avoid are destitution for some and extreme concentrations of wealth and power for some. The former people suffer with great unhappiness, while the latter embody wasted resources and diminished returns of happiness. A balanced society is the optimum.

A society with maximum freedom for the great majority, a strong safety net for the unlucky or unendowed, and a strong barrier to prevent a few from sucking all the resources of the nation to themselves, like a black hole sucks matter.

With the BEGINNING POINT known and the END POINT fixed, our mission is to find the optimum path to get there. Analogous to a Feynman Path Integral in quantum mechanics - yes, that's how Bunkerman thinks - we need to examine all paths to find the optimum. The wave functions of many will cancel out, but some will add up and show us the path to our desired END POINT.

Free Fraternalism is name (lol its most recent name) for the ideology that provides the optimum path to that happier society. With that ideology, the people can work independently, or with some leadership, to cause the nation to enter this optimum path to the desired eschaton.

Think of this a bit like the journey in Pilgrim's Progress. Many lures and dangerous places are on the journey, but with a strong belief in the principles of Free Fraternalism and a bit of help from true leaders, the people can eventually arrive at its eschaton: a freer, happier, more secure nation with ties of fraternity among its people.

Running out of time. I'll write much more on reforms needed and how to get there with Free Fraternalism.

Word of the Day

"Susurrus" - noun [$10] literary, a T. S. Eliot word
Susurrus means a sound of whospering or rustling.
Sentence: Are the winds of change making that susurrus among the people? Let's hope so.

Slurp, Slurp, Slurp

That's the sound of the CEO hogs feeding at the trough. They are back to their old antics: using the corporate treasury to prop up the value of their stock options & other executive compensation. How?

From the WSJ (Dec. 18 online): "$92 billion: How much companies spent on their own shares in the third quarter of 2010. U.S. companies are finally finding a use for some of the nearly $2 trillion in cash sitting on their balance sheets. In the three months ended September, they spent a seasonally adjusted $92 billion on share buybacks, up 71% from the previous quarter and the highest level since the beginning of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve."

That's $92 billion they are not using to do their jobs, viz. to grow the company and improve its operations. That's $92 billion spent to buy stocks at HIGH prices. In late 2008 & 2009, corporation sold billions in stock to raise money to improve their balance sheets ... at LOW prices. Did any of these CEO-CFO "brains" buy back stock at LOW prices? Nope.

They SELL LOW and BUY HIGH. They refuse to hire good people to improve operations. They (mostly) don't do R&D to create new products.

Stock buybacks don't help the investors in a company; all they do is subsidize the SELLERS - those getting out. This behavior is utterly foolish and stupid, yet the cossetted Boards of Directors approve it. Why? They are part of the same clique in the Ruling Class who think only of their own pay and perks. Use the corporate treasury to pad their compensation? Sure, why not. After all, they all do it.

Compensation policies should SUBTRACT any benefit from stock buybacks from earnings baselines for executive pay.

A reform that could help shareHOLDERS act to improve corporate governance: Mandate secret proxy votes. This would give mutual fund firms the freedom to vote their best interests without extortion threats from corporations to pull 401K business, etc.

We get lousy, corrupt corporate governance because corporate elections are conducted SOVIET style, with the corporation knowing how one votes. Ballot secrecy preserves truly free elections. Give us ballot secrecy in ALL corporate proxy elections.

And we need public pressure to "out" these CEO-CFO hogs and harshly criticize their actions. Free Fraternalism does this. The ideology and practices of Free Fraternalism can bring real change to help the common man and retain his freedom. This is true reform.

A Book Worth Reading

The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Edited by David J. Garrow [ISBN 978-0-87049-527-4] The University of Tennessee Press: 1987], I purchased this book at the recommendation of the person running the gift shop at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. It's a jewel - a diamond - a valuable first hand account of that singular event that propelled Civil Rights onto the national stage. Read it. Learn how a group of intelligent women organized and obtained help to run a bus boycott that led to a Supreme Court decision wiping out segregation laws. Learn how they nonviolently fought State oppression and corruption. And learn the truth behind the legends. This event is extremely poorly portrayed by the modern press.

Tea Parties: read this book. You have more power than you realize, BUT you need to adjust your practices and organize better. You need to get the common man & woman behind you by seeking true reform for ALL. Don't be a tool for the billionaire vikings. Support true reform for ALL.

Word of the Day

"Sectary" - noun [$10]
Sectary means a member of a religious or political sect.
Sentence: Tea Party sectaries need to adopt Free Fraternalism to become a majority party in the US. Modify Libertarian ideas to avoid being a tool for the billionaire vikings; Freedom works, but freedom for the dominant to enserf the common man is one freedom that must be curtailed. Free Fraternalism does that.

Improving Returns

Many people have two pockets for their retirement money: tax deferred retirement accounts like IRAs and 401Ks and savings that has already been taxed, such as bank CDs and brokerage accounts. I'll skip ROTH IRAs for now as they are a hybrid (and not relevant to the main point of this article).

How do you manage this dual nature? What investments do you put in which pocket? This is not an easy question. Today I'll address one aspect of it.

Taxes do matter; for this analysis I'll use a 28% Federal tax rate. That's the AMT rate. I will leave State income taxes out; incorporating them is rather obvious, but since state tax rates vary widely, you have to do this part yourself.

A municipal bond portfolio that yields 5% will produce $5,000 for every $100,000 invested, after Federal taxation, which is zilch for most municipal bonds. For a taxable bond portfolio, one would need a yield of almost 7% to recover the same 5% aftertax yield. How to calculate this? Take the 5% and divide it by the decimal equivalent of 100% minus the tax rate, viz. 28%, which quantity is 72% which has a decimal equivalent of 0.72: 5% / 0.72 = 6.94%, almost 7%.

[NOTE: using the widely applicable 25% Federal marginal tax rate produces a 6.67% effective rate and the point still works; if your Federal marginal tax rate is 15%, stick to taxable fixed income investments.]

Investing at 6.94% in taxable bonds would give you a LOT of risk today (those are junk bond levels), but investing in municipal bonds at 5% is rather easy and can be done with solid A and AA rated bonds of good quality.

Therefore, much of the fixed income portion your retirement fund - my Krypto Fund - should be put in the taxable pocket and be invested in municipal bonds yielding over 5%.

This strategy must be tempered a bit due to the relative illiquidity of municipal bonds. You should do this only for the stable base portion of your Krypto Fund, which is in fact what Krypto does do. This portion is the part you do not expect to need to use to re-balance.

By using municipal bonds this way, you will increase the return of your Krypto Fund a lot. You're getting effectively 7% in fixed income, not the 5% available in corporate bonds. That extra 2% is a lot. Another way to think of it is this: I target a 5% taxable withdraw rate as readily achievable over a long term in the Krypto Fun with minimal risk of every running out. Getting 7% effective taxable return on a big part of the fixed income investments provides me a 2% per annum cushion that could be reinvested as reserves for unforeseen costs or big market pullbacks like 2008-9. That's good.

By the way, the rest of the taxable pocket for your Krypto Fund should be heavily geared to stocks for which low capital gains tax rates apply. This also gives you an edge for your returns for your Krypto Fund.

Word of the Day

"Syncretism" - noun [$10]
Syncretism means 1. the combination of two different forms of belief or practice (or art); 2. the fusion of two or more original different inflectionist forms.
Sentence: Long term retirement investing practice is necessarily a syncretism of the taxable and the tax free worlds of investments. One needs to combine the two worlds optimally to obtain the highest return for desired risk levels.

Obama and the Hogs

What a disgrace!

To solve the problems of the economy, Obama decides to ask ... the CEO hog corps. That's vomitous! They are part of the problem. They grind down and fire thousands of common man & woman employees, and then pay themselves millions upon millions for doing just that.

They move plants to Mexico, China, India, etc. and then re-import the products tariff-free. The profits? They leave overseas in tax havens. And then, of course, they pay themselves more and more for gutting the US domestic economy.

They lobby for more immigrant visas, yet use their low pay to hold down wages of US engineers, etc. More students would go into engineering in college IF the pay and job security was better. Yet those very immigrant visas help make pay and job security worse. The "solution" for an engineering shortage makes the problem WORSE. Of course, it makes corporate profits and CEO pay higher.

Big corporate CEOs and the entire executive suite of these corporations are cluster hogs at the trough. They just can't get enough, yet are always doing something to grind down the common man, and lobby for more laws and ways to do it.

Obama wants their help ... huh? For what?

My guess ... for campaign contributions for 2012. And to co-opt them onto his team. Maybe to signal to them he wants what they want. More power for the Ruling Class. Heck, that big tax benefit he proposes to give them 100% deduction for new equipment is anti-worker, but helps the CEOs grab more pay.

They are all part of the problem. These "solutions" to the nation's economic problems, devised in DC and by the Ruling Class, are all subterfuges to give themselves more income & power. Don't trust any "solution" unless it has real input by persons from the outside - outside of DC and the Ruling Class.

Grrr. And of course the media sycophants cheer that passel of hogs as they devise more ways to slurp down everything.

Actions

Bought some more municipal bonds yesterday; got about 5.25% yield to maturity on some bonds offered at 92, rated AA. Good deal. We'll keep nibbling ... with patience.

Word of the Day

"Groat" - noun [$10] a T. S. Eliot word
Groat means 1. a silver coin worth four old pence; 2. (archaic) a small sum (don't care a groat).
Groats (noun, plural) means hulled or crushed grain, esp. oats.
Sentence: The meeting of Obama and the CEOs won't produce a groat of help for the common man.

More Moves and Reasoning

Yesterday I described the budding "screaming buy" market for municipal bonds. That doesn't mean any municipal bond. You have to use the best weapon you have - your mind. The human brain is man's greatest weapon and resource. It always stuns me that so many don't use it for investing. Many people spend more time analyzing the best buy for a new washing machine, but when buying a stock costing 10x as much, they ... just listen to a bloviator on TV or a big mouth at the "country club".

One should read the news and follow some of the financial commentary - they bring interesting outlooks and have some hard-to-find data on places like China. I listen, but don't obey like a trained dog. I listen and let the ideas bubble around my head and think. For example, traveling in Alabama I saw an interview by Jim Chanos, the famous short seller. About Chanos - he's, of course, a perma-bear of sorts. But he often has real facts to base stock specific thinking. Often he's early, and yes, he can be wrong. But listening to his data and facts helps.

I listened to what he had to say about the huge real estate building booms in China. Hmmm ... does "real estate boom" ring a bell? Those always blow up eventually; the one in China has gone on ... for years. Combine this with what we know about Red Chinese corruption and ... the little birdie is chirping. Watch out stocks requiring more and more growth in those areas. They've had a multi-year run. Don't be a pig.

Mrs. B's Sky Fund (a portion of The Krypto Fund manged for educational purposes by Mrs. B with my help) had bought CLF, an iron ore company, and MT, a steel company, in the summer when the beefer* boobs trashed them in a Viking raid on Euro fears. CLF now shows a 50% profit and MT shows a 25% profit. But their charts seem to indicate struggling patterns and those stocks are very, very dependent on Chinese demand for building buildings. Uh oh ... time to take some profits. Those were sold yesterday.

[*beefer = Big, Evil Fund - a financial Viking - scum of the investing world, bane for individual investors & traders, looters and piranhas in the markets].

Now consider AAPL - Apple. That stock has been a huge winner for Sky Fund, and is now a rather large position. It's up way over 100% from the dip buy of Mrs. B a while ago. My normal rule is to sell 1/2 of a stock when it's doubled. Then we have the remaining 1/2 for free. APPL has had lots of good news and I really like the company; its products are revolutionary. But ... what's next? Why take a big risk? The beefers love to raid that stock, particularly after earnings. January will be prime raiding season. And without more new products and good news, the beefers will surely bail out. Time to sell that 1/2 and get the remaining ride for free. That was done yesterday.

This money goes to cash to fund municipal bond purchases. I expect to be a steady buyer. Every morning Mrs. B and I will be looking over lists from her broker to try to buy good bonds. What's a good bond in my opinion? That's for a later blog post.

Word of the Day

"Preternatural" - adjective [$10]
Preternatural means outside the ordinary course of nature; supernatural.
Sentence: No preternatural skill or knowledge is required to be an above average investor. Just follow simple rules such as for Krypto Fund, pay attention and think. You'll be kicking beefer butts in no time.

Biscuits & Gravy

That's a fine Southern or Country style meal one can get in diners & truck stops in a swath across the southern & middle parts of the US. I admit it's not my favorite breakfast choice at those places [I usually order ham & eggs with home fries], but the metaphors one can draw from it are wonderful.

Hud, the lead character in the eponymous movie, said, "Let’s us put our bread in some of that gravy while it’s still hot!"

Often I modified that to this: "Let's stick our biscuit in that gravy while it's still hot."

Today, the fitting line is, "The gravy's getting warmer, reach for the biscuits."

Meaning, yields in municipal bonds are approaching or surpassing the 5% line of demarcation for buying them.

Why 5%? Because that's about how much one can draw from well-diversified retirement funds like Krypto Fund over the long term, yet maintain the fund balance and purchasing power. If you can invest the fixed income portions of the fund at 5% aftertax, you are locking in a fine retirement return that is equivalent to around 7% pretax.

For months I've been selling stocks, real estate, TIPs, and gold+silver (ETFs and stocks), taking profits as those rose and rose. I put all that money into money market funds to WAIT. Why buy bonds at 3% - that's locking in a loser. Cash balances in Krypto Fund have risen to 15% - a lot in a category that normally should be zero. I don't make crappy long term investments just because there are no good buys out there. The maxim is, Buy LOW, sell high. If you don't wait for the "Buy Low" part, you are being stupid and/or gullible and/or foolish. You are letting your emotions rule. You are listening to some foolish "perfect markets" theorist who says timing doesn't matter. Don't listen. WAIT for good investments in fixed income.

Now my waiting and patience is being rewarded. The wait was not long, just about a year. But waiting means I don't lose 10% of my investment on the recent large falls in bonds prices. With coupons in the 3-4% range, I'd lose 2-3 years of coupons by barging in to buy overpriced bonds with the money from the "Sell High" part of the maxim. Wait. Waiting pays. Buy LOW.

Now I see municipal bond offerings daily from Mrs. B's broker. We look them over, discuss them (yes, this is part of Mrs. B's investment education) and nibble. We stick our biscuits into the warming gravy.

This buying process will likely take months. I expect municipal bonds prices to be weak, as that boondoggle Federal program to stupidly subsidize "Build America Bonds" dies at year end. That program creates huge losses for taxpayers. The buyers of those taxable bonds were mostly tax exempt institutions, yet the Federal taxpayer gave the municipalities at 35% subsidy to lower their interest cost. Almost none of the subsidy is recovered in tax payments in taxable bonds. Why? The DC Ruling Class just wanted to shovel money to the Wall Street underwriters.

Mmmmm ... warm gravy, getting warmer. I have my biscuit ready.

Word of the Day

"Perspicuous" - adjective [$10]
Perspicuous means 1. easily understood, clearly expressed; 2. (or a person) expressing things clearly.
Sentence: "Buy Low, Sell High" and "Sell High, Buy Low" are perspicuous maxims for investment success once one recognizes the actions need NOT occur at the same time. "Wait" bridges the buying and sell actions to favorable times & prices.

Back in the Saddle

After an enjoyable business trip throughout Alabama last week, I'm back and looking forward to giving the hogs a smack in their snouts. While traveling I read an article that the executive suite has their snouts in the trough, slurping down bigger and more expensive health care plans ... for themselves, of course. And paid by the company, of course. Joe & Jane Worker ... keep getting their health plans cut and their co-pays increased.

Why are the best paid and most able to afford these premium plans getting them for free? And those least able to afford them getting less and less? Simple, it's greed. The hogs in the executive suite get their pals on the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors to award them more ... and more. And then they grind down the common employee with less and less to pump up earnings.

Of course, the gold-plated health plans are tax deductible, even under the Obama plan. Not even that plan gives any semblance of fraternity or equality. It's simply a disgrace for corporate governance and for US tax policy.

Free Fraternalism would cure this with simple policy: all corporate health plans must be equal for all employees - no exceptions. Enforcement would be a 100% excise tax on any executive plans that provides better benefits for them. See how simple principles let one govern with transparency and ease. Let the highly paid spend their own money for better care.

Free Fraternalism - the Right Way.

Actions

Krypto wants me to sell some US stocks - not a lot, just part of Sell High, Buy Low. The buy part will be municipal bonds. We are now seeing good quality municipal bonds yielding over 5%. I'll be buying them steadily as available.

Also, prices for TIPs have dropped fast. Krypto sold all those at higher prices. We will re-buy them in phases when the long term TIP rises over 2% real return or the ETF gets to about 105. This re-buy will be slow as I want to average in.

Simple investing: buy low, sell high; and sell high, buy low. Remember, you can and should WAIT in cash for part #2 of each of these rules.

Word of the Day

"Kleptocracy" - noun [$10] a Big Al word.
Kleptocracy means government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed.
Sentence: Who can doubt that the US government AND the governance of most US large corporations are kleptocracies?

Traveling

I'll be traveling on business for the rest of the week, making new posts this week unlikely unless something big happens.

Deficiency at the Deficit Commission

What is the huge missing piece in the proposal of the Deficit Commission?

Leadership is making the all Federal employees bear a fair share of austerity. Including Congress. Had the commission had a majority of persons from outside the DC Ruling Class, you can be certain it would have included something like a 20% pay & benefits cut for Federal employees with the cuts concentrated at the top of the pay scale. They are grossly overpaid, having received years of inflation and step increases while the common man & woman have borne pay stagnation or cuts, and large benefit cuts.

The same applies to Federal contractors. When a company has troubles, it goes to suppliers and demands price cuts. The Federal government has huge purchasing power - why didn't the Deficit Commission propose cuts in all contractor costs?

The answer to these glaring failures is simple: the Commission was almost all DC insiders, they are part of the problem.

Create a truly independent commission - with a supermajority of persons outside of government and outside of DC (and NYC and LA and Chicago). Get people who have experience in cutting costs.

And require ALL spending cuts come before ANY tax increases. Otherwise we will simply see the same old shell game: more taxes, no spending cuts implemented.

More

Is anyone amazed that with almost 10% unemployment and 17% underemployment, that a Democratic President has NO plan or program to help create jobs? Barry is a complete cluster FUBAR, with no ideas or leadership. The People chose badly. Remember who touted him as the great savior, and disregard them in the future.

And More

Uh ... with all the handwringing and anguish over QE2, has anyone bothered to look at the FACT that the monetary base is LOWER than it was a year ago. That's tightening, not easing. Battleship Ben: your shells are falling short, add more powder. Accelerate the buying of those Treasury securities.

Actions

Krypto wants me to sell some gold; that sector is now overinvested due to recent gains. I'll do it via a gold stocks fund. Proceeds to cash to await better bond prices.

Word of the Day

"Irrefragable" - adjective [$10] an Eliot word (i. e., from readings of T. S. Eliot)
Irrefragable means 1. (of a statement, argument or person) unanswerable, indisputable; 2. (of rules, etc.) inviolable.
Sentence: That the Deficit Commission was poorly and fatally constructed by Barry is irrefragable as it was dominated by the Congressmen who are part of the problem.

What is to be Done?

That's the title of a famous book written by Lenin in 1902, that outlined a shift in revolutionary tactics that led to the Soviet Revolution in 1917, less that 15 years' later. This week's blogs for Monday & Tuesday listed the Good & Bad of Republicans & Democrats. Wednesday decribed the Composition of the Ruling Class. Yesterday I describe the Power Struggle that must take place. And today I provide the ideology that would win this Power Strggle with the Ruling Class.

That ideology is Fraternal Libertarianism, of course. Considering the disasters caused by applications of Libertarianism in recent decades as well as my own proofs of the inherent flaws of Libertarianism, I will rename it Free Fraternalism. Propagation and acceptance of this political economist system as the core of a political party would capture the entire vital center of the American electorate; a solid majority. The other parties would be rendered asunder and left as mere rumps of extremists. The political revolution would be similar to that which occurred before the Civil War, when the Republican party was formed from part of the old Whigs and part of the old Democrats.

Why would a party adopting Free Fraternalism rip off and collect parts of the R's and D's? That easy. Below I largely repeat the "Good" parts of the R's and D's, BUT AS BELIEFS OF FREE FRATERNALISTS.

Beliefs of Free Fraternalists

Free Fraternalists have, or at least sometimes have, an inherent distrust of increasing governmental power and raising taxes.

Fre Fraternalists tend to trust the private sector for solutions and have faith in the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith that private sector evolution will solve all problems over time with economic growth. Thus they have an inherent bias towards economic freedom, supporting free use of private property.

Free Fraternalists tend to favor conservative, slow evolution of social values and reject actions by government to impose social values on free people. Just leave us alone, they would say.

Free Fraternalists tend to favor governmental power in the context of promoting the commercial system, including money and credit.

Free Fraternaists favor a strong military and a strong US to project power over the world to promote freedom; they distrust treaties and both rightwing and leftwing dictators and Communists.

Free Fraternalists oppose using governmental power to increase power of labor unions. For example, they support the current secret union ballot requirement over "card check", which would permit union goons to extort public 'yes' votes from individuals.

Free Fraternalists think much of governmental bureaucracy is a colossal waste of money and creates massive "red tape" that hampers economic development.

Free Fraternalists believe the US is a force of good in the world.

Free Fraternalists have some true empathy for poor and marginalized persons and correctly recognize that much of this is simply bad luck. Luck has huge effects on how jobs, small business and careers turn out.

Free Fraternalists want to even out this inherent volatility of life in the US; to do "something" to more equalize "happiness" across people.

Free Fraternalists are street fighters - they believe strongly that their "party" is correct and will do almost anything to win.

Free Fraternalists want those who are receiving the most benefits of life in the US to pay a larger share of the cost of supporting the US.

More of Free Fraternalism

The core ideology of Free Fraternalism is fraternalism: the top of the wealth distribution helps the bottom. Not equality - simply some help. And this mandate of aid also serves to cap the power of the top, and prevents them from becoming a ruling aristocracy. The two boundary limits provide stability: formation of an oppressed class of the poor is prevented as is the formation of a aristocracy. The great center core of the population of the common men and women is completely free.

One can visualize this as a trimmed mean: professionals and students in statistics know that an average calculated by dropping the top & bottom of the distribution's sample gives a more robust, stable estimate of the mean.

Free Fraternalism gives complete freedom to the huge bulk of the people with boundaries. The top and the bottom of the wealth distributions have boundaries. Not hard walls, but soft walls - cushions: Some wealth of the top is used to help the bottom.

How much wealth of the top 20% would be needed to raise the wealth of the bottom 20% to just the 20 percentile level? Frankly, I'd guess not much. Probably a lot less than current governmental transfer payments. Certainly not enough to come near leveling the top 20% back to the 80th percentile.

That huge center 60% of the people would gain a huge amount of freedom; the unfortunate and unlucky would have a solid safety net; the wealthy could live without worries over eventual confiscation of all their wealth. The great center would live without fear that some bad luck would lead to destitution. Aggregate human happiness would tremendously increase.

Yes, Free Fraternalism is the key for winning the Power struggle with the Ruling Class.

Let's all become Free Fraternalists.

[For more on the theory of Free Fraternalism, aka Fraternal Libertarianism, see my blog posts of April 9, 2010 and January 29, 2010]

Word of the Day

"Tropological" - adjective [$10] from Tropology - noun [$10]
Tropology means the figurative use of words; 2. figurative interpretation esp. of scriptures.
Sentence: View From The Bunker makes frequent use of tropology, particularly in its pejorative names and descriptions of people in the Ruling Class. They sure act like Hogs at the Trough.

The Power Struggle

The Ruling Class was dissected in this blog yesterday - who it is and what it does and how it got its power over a few decades. In summary, the Ruling Class in America is a synthesis of wealthy people who seek power and educated people who seek power. They use that power to control government to move it in directions that increase their incomes and power. They hide their actions under a blanket of mind-numbing complexity in laws and regulations and procedures.

The major communication media are willing partners. Their parasitical coexistence with government gives them special access to "news" and broadcast spectrum; in turn they serve as the propaganda bullhorn for the Ruling Class. Why else would Davos get the nonstop coverage that it does?

The people's struggle now - as many, many seem to recognize now that we've lost control over our own government - is how to vanquish the Ruling Class and get power back to the people.

"Tea party" groups are a start, but they need to recognize that many are being manipulated and partly controlled by billionaires in the Ruling Class who want new rules to permit them to increase their wealth & power.

Elections are crucial. Winning primary and general elections with honest candidates having the backbone - courage - to stand up to the Ruling Class in DC and the State governments and to say NO! NO MORE! Many governmental procedures require consents (implicit or otherwise) of many groups. Getting right thinkers' into power and their noncooperation will gum up the works - throw sand in the gears. They can force the Ruling Class to begin to negotiate and back down. Once the Ruling Class is stopped, the rollback can begin.

Incremental success is crucial. Once some success occurs, more and more people will likely recognize that they can take back their government and then join the movement. The movement needs to by-pass traditional media, but not ignore them. Blogs, web pages, social networking, small meetings and major rallies can work better IF used to pressure traditional media to get onto the bandwagon,. Their own profit motive will help that process.

The people need to elect a few honest people to government at all levels. Then they need to be strident and serve the people. Oppose ALL the devices of the Ruling Class to keep and get more power and income. Expose their sleaze. Call their press sycophants what they are: tools of the Ruling Class. That hurts them; they need an aura of credibility to sell ads and get viewers & subscribers. Fight and don't give up. Don't compromise. Demand what's Right!

This is really a 21st century class struggle (Common Man vs. Ruling Class), but I'm not going to use that term, as many, many people in the US have a negative reaction to that name. Fine. Why be dogmatic? Power Struggle is perfectly good name, too, and is more specific, too.

The movement needs an ideology for unity. An ideology lets people act in concert without direct coordination and cooperation. The ideology acts as a virtual bond between disparate people across the nation: it's like a long range force that permits a correlation of actions of otherwise independent people.

What is that ideology to be?

Long term readers can guess, but I will write about it tomorrow.

Word of the Day

"Trope" - noun [$10]
Trope means a figurative (e. g. metaphorical or ironical) usage of a word.
Sentence: Bunkerman's favorite trope is "hog"; it metaphorically fits the Ruling Class, all those overpaid CEOs and Wall Street leeches. Just imagine a passel of hogs slurping down they can get at the trough, jostling with each other, oinking away in delight and eating everything in sight. It fits perfectly.

The Composition of the Ruling Class

For quite some time I've defined the Ruling Class as the Rich & Powerful. Those are necessary conditions, but those criteria just tell us what people in the Ruling Class have .. not who they are. Human populations are distributions over many, many attributes: size, weight, the many dimensions of intelligence, capacity for love, and for ruthlessness, among hundreds or more. Not everyone who is Rich is in the Ruling Class. Perhaps even most are not. And what do we mean by "Rich"? Having lots of money? Nope, illiquid property could qualify. Or perhaps lots of "capital"? That's better AND it would include human capital - the value of one's education and technical skills. Lots of people in DC are not rich in money terms, but have lots of human capital AND have great power ... and they like using it.

That's a key criteria - willingness to use the money or power ... to tell everyone else how to live and to increase their own wealth & power. Let's call that attribute Ruthlessness.

Many people who are "Rich" live quiet lives, helping people in tough situations, helping communities, helping their children, helping nourish art & science, etc. And they don't even want their names emblazoned everywhere like some god or have their butts kissed regularly in some black-tie gala.

And many people with great human capital are not devoted to getting more money income. Some simply want to have "enough" and then spend their lives proving theorems or writing books or whatever. Getting a book award or a medal is plenty ... some simple recognition that their efforts are appreciated.

Others .. want to use that capital (money OR human capital) to tell common man how to live ... or to become a new Duke or Baron over the common man .,. or to be seen as the enlighten Prince with many courtiers asking a "by your leave" for permission for ... almost anything.

The New Ruling Class

WW I and WW II completely re-ordered world power bases, wiping out the old aristocracies, and the scientific, media and computer revolution have hugely increased the ability of government to ... govern. A Ruthless component of highly educated people saw Government as a means to increase the income on their human capital. And in government they would have a power base to protect themselves from outside forces. These people, with the connivance of Ruthless wealthy persons, have slowly taken over the US Government since the 1960s.

One can see it in the steady growth in the bureaucracy ... the increasing number of super-grade governmental executives ... the pay and benefits for these people ... and the power they command. Universities are addicted to Federal grants and many, many professors are part of the hive, too. They need grants to fund their research and will lend their human capital to help to increase governmental power. Is their any wonder why "studies" always find a need for a new program or policy, or support an existing policy?

Big Corporations are a fertile feeding ground for the educated to get better income on their human capital. As are law firms. And then the Ruthless among them want more .. and more. The pay is excellent and they they are invited to sit on councils and committees. And go to Davos. And influence their like-minded colleagues in government to send more of the people's money to their corporations and law firms. Why do you think that all stimulus money for large projects require lots and lots of studies done by consultants? That's how they pay off their brethren in the Ruling Class.

Think tanks in DC are part of the Ruling Class, too. The Rich fund these to lobby and generate polices that they want to impose on the people. The Think Tanks hire lots of highly educated people who want to be well-paid to create these policies ... to impose on the people. The same is true of the huge Foundations funded by the Rich.

Lobbying groups also create lots of highly paid jobs for the ruthless educated persons: the education lobby, the various corporate lobbies, the many other policy lobbies - all create jobs and power for the

The Ruthless among the educated persons are a critical part of the Ruling Class. Without them, the Ruling Class would be unable to .. Rule. The educated component also connive to make government incredibly complex - so complex that outsiders can't understand what's going on. That complexity is like a castle wall - a huge barrier to entry to protect the monopoly on governmental power for the Ruling Class.

People need to recognize this group ... they are also hogs at the trough. The new health care law has 2,000 pages for a reason: the Ruthless educated persons wrote it that way so they will have power over everyone. This is why tax laws are thousands of pages, why education rules consume volumes, why government contract bidding rules are voluminous, etc.

What about so-called independent commissions or independent studies? Look at the composition, who is doing the bulk of the work? Is a majority of the people truly independent of government - true outsiders? If not, distrust them. Just say No. Truly independent outsiders can give good advice and find answers. Ruling Class drones will not.

Two prime examples: (1) the Deficit Commission - almost all Congressman with absolutely no sources of independent information or thinking, and (2) the world climate commission (aka IPCC) - all members are addicted to governments grants or are Foundation trolls or are actually governmental representatives. Of course they "get the right answer" and try to censor dissent.

The people need to eject and dissolve all these chains on their lives; tear down these castles of the Barons of the Ruling Class. A friend of mine sees all that has changed in the US since the 1960s and wonders: Has there has been a Coup? If one looks at the beginning and the end, it would look like a coup has occurred. My conclusion is that we have experienced slow power struggle - the new Ruling Class, created by merging Rich & Powerful with the Ruthless educated persons, has taken power in the US. They now try to rule over the common man & woman and take more and more control and wealth from them.

A quote from poem, Four Quartets: The Dry Salvages, by T. S. Eliot fits: "We've had the experience, but missed the meaning." These changes have happened slowly for decades; we've noticed the changes but the meaning has been obscure until the cumulative change was very large over our lifetime. We all remember the freedom we once had .. and how prosperous the US once was. Let's recognize NOW what's happened and start changing the US now to become the great place it once was.

Tomorrow & Friday: How to do it.

Word of the Day

None today - out of time.

The Good and the Bad on Democrats

Yesterday I both praised and flogged the Republicans. Today I do the same to Democrats.

The Good

"Most" Democrats have some true empathy for poor and marginalized persons and correctly recognize that much of this is simply bad luck. Luck has huge effects on how jobs, small business and careers turn out. "Most" Democrats want to even out this inherent volatility of life in the US; to do "something" to more equalize "happiness" across people.

"Most" Democrats are street fighters - they believe strongly that their "party" is correct and will do almost anything to win. This strength of beliefs is in sharp contrast to the spineless nature of many" Republicans, who dislike getting their hands a bit dirty.

"Most" Democrats want those who are receiving the most benefits of life in the US to pay a larger share of the cost of supporting the US.

That's about it.

The Bad

"Most" Democrats look at a human being and don't see one; they see instead a member of a class, a racial group, an ethnic group, or a union member, scab or boss.

"Most" Democrats think crime is not performed by people with free will, but by persons controlled by the forces of society and contaminated (or animated) by things like handguns.

"Most" Democrats think the solution to a problem is to prevent it by imposing restrictions and controls on everyone, not by simply dealing with the problem directly where it is and who is causing it.

"Most" Democrats think large segments of people should get a free ride in the US paid for by the amorphous class of the "Rich".

"Most" Democrats don't want those who are already rich and wealthy to pay to support the US - they prefer to tax those trying to get rich. This is perhaps caused by the huge financial support given to the Democratic Party by those with inherited wealth or those who are already rich.

"Most" Democrats see the US as the cause of most of the world's problems.

"Most" Democrats are opposed to having a militarily strong US. They seem to prefer a world government and put faith in paper treaties for US security.

"Most" Democrats love US labor unions as a source of political power, neglecting the historical facts that companies with such unions tend to be driven out of business over time, causing huge pain and suffering for huge numbers of union members who lose jobs over time.

"Most" Democrats love government rules and regulations as ways to control people, prevent "undue" competition and to protect those in power and with existing businesses (who can be shaken down for campaign contributions).

"Most" Democrats love government workers - especially unionized ones - who can be reliable campaign workers to help Democrats retain power.

"Most" Democrats think human beings are a contamination on the Planet Earth, and that people - and ALL their activities - need to be strictly controlled by government to prevent stupid people from damaging the Planet. Historical facts about true forces of nature and its variations and effects over the past few thousand years are ignored: free people are the problem.

"Most" Democrats think health care is a fundamental Right, but neglect to explain how it can be a Right when such would impose a positive burden on others. Health care can be a shared benefit of a wealthy society, but cannot be a right in any self-consistent political theory. To see this simply, consider two people on an island. One must work for the other's "right", hence is a slave.

"Most" Democrats think judges are the proper deciders of many, many social issues ... as long as they get the right answer. "Most" Democrats seem to dislike democracy - when those white, working class people actually go vote for laws that "Most" Democrats are against. They seem to prefer rule by the new Lords of Society.

"Most" Democrats want to use large corporations as arms of the State, to impose all sorts of rules and regulations from the treatment of employees to environmental actions. The definition of "large" to a Democrat is over 50 employees. Odd coincidence ... that was the upper limit in Communist Poland for a firm being privately owned.

"Most" Democrats think the US Constitution is not a written document with specific words. They like unelected judges to re-write it as needed, making it up as they go along, making it "say" whatever they believe at the time. This connects to the Democratic dislike of democracy - the people are prevented from having a role in this matter.

Conclusion

"Most" Democrats - that is, the philosophical underpinning of their thinking - has no respect for human beings as individuals. They don't like people and see free people as the problem: they must be controlled. In that sense, they don't like democracy, and seem to prefer a new feudal aristocracy led by the already wealthy living off trust funds and municipal bonds. The new Princes and their councils of Lords & Bishops (the professionals) lead legions of unionized public employees and have State officials from judges to department heads to issue edicts to control the people.

Tomorrow I dissect the new Ruling Class - who they are & where they came from.

Word of the Day

"Traduce" - verb, transitive [$10]
Traduce means to speak ill of; misrepresent
Sentence: When a political candidate spends all his time traducing his opponent, one must wonder what he's hiding about his own record.

The Good and the Bad on Republicans

This week's blog posts will be a series on the US political system and its competing ideologies and groups. Today I dissect Republicans.

The Good

"Many" Republicans have, or at least sometimes have, an inherent distrust of increasing governmental power and raising taxes. "Many" Republicans tend to trust the private sector for solutions and have faith in the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith that private sector evolution will solve all problems over time with economic growth. Thus they have an inherent bias towards economic freedom, supporting free use of private property.

"Many" Republicans tend to favor conservative, slow evolution of social values and reject actions by government to impose social values on free people. Just leave us alone, they would say. They like to override states in this context.

"Many" Republicans tend to favor governmental power in the context of promoting the commercial system, including money and credit. They like to override state laws in this context and favor national solutions in this context.

"Many" Republicans favor a strong military and a strong US to project power over the world to promote freedom; they distrust treaties and leftwing dictators and Communists. They distrust leftist governments in general.

"Most" Republicans oppose using governmental power to increase power of labor unions. For example, they support the current secret union ballot requirement over "card check", which would permit union goons to extort public 'yes' votes from individuals.

"Most" Republicans think much of governmental bureaucracy is a colossal waste of money and creates massive "red tape" that hampers economic development.

"Most" Republicans believe the US is a force of good in the world.

Historically, many of the greatest US presidents and political leaders were, or would have been, Republicans: Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan. To the extent Whigs are a predecessor of Republicans, Henry Clay could be counted in the Republican camp.

Enough ... you get the general drift.

The Bad

"Most" Republicans are wimps. They just aren't willing to fight to the end for their "values" They cave in and go along with proposals that sell out their principals. The most famous recent case is George H. W. Bush breaking his public promise and raising taxes. The inability of Republicans to beat Democrats in many, many elections that end up in recounts and courts again illustrates their spineless character. The Democrats break rules, and do anything to win; Republican operatives tend to want to play by the rules, hence they lose. Figuratively, one should prefer a Democrat in a foxhole in combat over a Republican.

Most Republicans seem unable to empathize with the truly needy on a national level. They ignore them, while looking to examples of abuse by fakers in gaming the system. A Republican would tell a poor person who has worked hard for his/her entire life and paid taxes for years, but now suffering a string of bad luck, to "pull himself up by his bootstraps". But have you every thought about that cliche? It's a parody - not real: try it sometimes with a real boot. All you accomplish is pulling yourself to the ground to collapse.

"Most" Republicans seem to disbelieve that government can help the national economy improve. They object to taxes for national improvements in a knee jerk fashion, conveniently forgetting the national Interstate highway system built in mid 20th century ... and the building of the national rail networks in the 19th century, both done with government support. Is that historical stupidity or ?

They object to governmental regulation or intervention in financial markets. They say, 'just let the chips fall' and it will all come out better. Hmm ... that worked great in the "flash crash" and in the Panic of 2008 when all money market funds and corporate commercial paper markets were in danger of collapse. "Most" Republicans support policies that favor financial Vikings over the common investor.

They tend to favor those with Money over those without Money in the use of governmental power. Using courts to collect debts is good, but using courts for debt relief is bad. Lenders can lie in courts and get a free pass; borrowers are to be punished for similar acts.

"Most" Republicans tend to oppose maximal personal freedom with regard to "social" or "family values" issues.

"Most" Republicans tend to believe big corporations are generally a force for good for the people and economic development; they ignore massive corporate dislocations and malfeasance: shipping jobs overseas, gross overpayment of the executive suite, huge corporate tax loopholes (really barn doors!).

"Most" Republicans favor the corporation over the union in labor issues. The third class in this battle - the people - are ignored. "Most" Republicans favor the CEOs & management in corporate governance, to the detriment of shareholder power.

"Most" Republicans tend to favor increases in governmental power for "crime" control and "security"; they do not give much weight to personal liberty or privacy in this conflict.

"Most" Republicans tend to favor right wing dictators over left wing dictators who might confiscate multinational corporate property; They tend to favor using governmental power (even via IMF-World Bank) in third world nations to shift property from government to the "private sector", viz., multinational corporations or (corrupt) national private interests.

"Most" Republicans ignore or "brush under the rug" or overtly support US policy around the world that does or tends to enrich its multinational corporations and private persons: they favor economic imperialism for private ends.

"Most" Republicans want no restrictions at all on the growth and power of the wealthy: they seem to positively ignore that such power and wealth is used to corrupt government into granting them more power & wealth. Historical and current evidence of that tendency is ignored.

Conclusion

The doctrine of "most" Republicans fails in both its historicity and in protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all the people. The best one can say is that it does not failure completely. There is some good in it, but much bad.

That's enough. Tomorrow I dissect Democrats.

Word of the Day

"Subsume" - verb [$10]
Subsume means to place in a more comprehensive category.
Sentence: This week's blog series will attempt to elevate our current political debates from the level of a football game, and subsume them into broad philosophical context that, I hope, will make a solution obvious. Often phasing the question correctly makes an answer obvious.

The Mountain of Cash

The stock rally Wednesday has moved a re-buy of US stocks off the front burner for Krypto Fund. What now?

I wait. I sell when prices are high and buy when they are low. That applies to EVERY asset class. Over the past few months I sold all my TIPS and large amounts of US stocks and all classes of foreign stocks and even gold stocks, as those asset classes rose in value. The money all went to cash - money market funds. The model wants me to buy fixed income bonds, BUT those are in bubble stage, too.

Hence my wait. Waiting even a couple years can pay off quickly. For example, the prices of bonds can easily fall 10% from here, yet the coupons are in the 4% range. Avoiding a 10% or more fall gives a great 2.5 year payback on the cost of waiting (viz., foregoing the 4% yield).

A possible buy looms: the recent large drops in both municipal bonds and 30 year US treasury bonds brings both those asset classes closer to a buy point - 5%. That's my long term investment minimum goal. Why buy bonds that yield less than that & lock in a losing investment? Just wait. The buys will come, maybe later this year if the economy begins the faster growth as I expect.

Waiting and sitting can pay well. Patience, grasshopper.

Word of the Day

"Antinomy" noun [$10]
Antinomy means 1. a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themseles reasonable; a paradox; 2. a conflict between two laws of authorities.
Sentence: For investing, the antinomy of buy and sell both being bad choices is resolved by wait - doing nothing. Let time and volatility provide a better investment action.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bunkerman wishes for all people a Happy Thanksgiving. This day is special to Americans as a day to appreciate all we have and all we can be. And by "all" I mean everything tangible and intangible. The Wall Street Journal publishes a very meaningful pair of editorials every Thanksgiving, which I always try to remember to read. Here they are in full:

***quote begins***

The Desolate Wilderness

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

This editorial has appeared annually since 1961.

And the Fair Land

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.

His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.

How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places -- only to find those men as frail as any others.

So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?

Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere -- in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

This editorial has appeared annually since 1961.

***quote ends***

And let me say this most strongly: it's Thanksgiving, not "Turkey Day".

A Favorite Food

Try buttercup squash - it's the best of all varieties of squash by far. Just cook it, remove the meat, mash and eat. No sugar or other flavoring is necessary. To distinguish it from butternut squash, just remember, "brown is bad". Buttercup squash is green and shaped a bit like a flattish cupcake. It's PLU# is 4758 [PLU = Price Look-Up].

Word of the Day

"Collation" - noun [$10]
Collation means 1. the act or instance of collating; 2.a. (Roman Church) a light mean allowed during a fast; 2.b. a light informal meal.
Sentence: No doubt, but that a Thanksgiving meal is no collation!

FBI

The press reports the FBI raided the offices of three hedge funds yesterday. I'll wait to read the details on whether this is a real investigation or a scalphunting expedition. Some people automatically trust the FBI. If one has been paying attention for the past thirty years, you can find well researched books that show such trust MAY or MAY NOT be deserved. It all depends on the character of the investigators and their bosses and bosses' bosses, etc.

Here are three books which I've read on this subject: two were written by former agents about successful operations, and one was written by a noted newspaper columnist and radio commentator.

The Good Guys: How We Turned the FBI 'Round - and Finally Broke the Mob [Paperback] Jules Bonavolonta (Author) - this is an excellent account how a few good FBI men corrected multi-decadal FBI negligence caused by J. Edgar Hoover's incompetence or corruption.

Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin [Paperback]John Barron (Author) - this book is a fine, dramatic account of the super-successful FBI penetration of the highest levels of the Soviet Union.

The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century [Mass Market Paperback] Howie Carr (Author) - Included in this book about political corruption and gangsters at the highest levels of State and Federal government is how the Boston FBI office was actually part of the gangster operations to the extent of condoning murders. The head agent is now in prison for life.

What to Do? Read the details of these hedge fund investigations and try to sift spin from reality. Do not unreservedly trust the investigators. Think - does the story make sense beyond a superficial glance.

Actions

Still waiting for a drop to the 1150-1160 area to re-buy US stocks that were sold around 1225.

Word of the Day

"Subrogate" - verb [$10]
Subrogate means to put in place of another [X is subrogated to the rights of Y].
Sentence: Don't subrogate your own critical thinking to institutional propaganda: be skeptical of government and its investigations.

Long Term Investing

The Krypto Fund is the name that I use for all our long term investments: IRAs, 401Ks, and all long term, taxable accounts. On February 10, 2007 I first described how it is managed in this blog, and have written about its style a few other times. From recent comments, obviously I need to repeat and update this management style.

For 2010, the Krypto Fund is up about 12% year-to-date - pretty good compared to the averages & hedge fund averages. Krypto Fund contains almost all index funds in different asset classes. I use canonical allocation percentages and manage around those benchmarks. I do adjust them as I age.

The canonical allocations NOW are this:
25% US stocks,
20% foreign stocks,
15% real estate funds,
25% fixed income bonds,
5% inflation-protected bonds,
5% gold & silver,
5% cash.

Since I think inflation protected bonds and fixed income bonds are greatly overvalued in bubble regions, the actual allocations NOW are 20% fixed income bonds, 0% inflation protected bonds and 15% cash with other asset classes at canonical percentages.

I use a spreadsheet to compute the asset class %'s, usually weekly based on Friday's prices.

US stock funds are Vanguard Total Market Fund, the corresponding exchange traded fund (ticker VTI), or the CREF Stock Account. [Mrs. Bunkerman was a scientist, so her retirement savings from work went to TIAA-CREF funds. Their "Stock Account" has some foreign stocks, so I reallocate these in the spreadsheet based on annual percentage components].

Foreign stocks are Vanguard Pacific Index, European Index and Emerging Markets Index Funds (& corresponding ETFs) - I allocate 1/3 of the total foreign stocks component to each, hence these are really 6.66% of total Krypto Fund each. Included here for total asset class calculations are the re-allocated CREF foreign stock amounts in correct proportions.

The real estate asset class is the Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund and the TIAA-CREF Real Estate Fund.

The fixed income bonds are the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index, various Long term municipal bonds, the TIAA traditional fixed income account, and the cash value of an old whole life insurance policy.

The inflation-protected bonds are Vanguard or TIAA-CREF inflation-protected bond funds, as appropriate.

Gold & silver are mostly American Eagle gold coins and silver bullion bars, plus ETFs for gold & silver (tickers are GLD and SLV, respectively), and the Vanguard Precious Metals Fund.

The Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund invests in REIT stocks, by the way, while the TIAA-CREF Real Estate Fund invests in actual buildings, etc., so they perform somewhat differently. Both are a bit leveraged, so I keep that asset class at 15%, rather than the 20% which would be appropriate for unleveraged real estate.

The spreadsheet computes the % size of each asset class each week. IF an asset class is more than 5% off its target percentage, I look to reallocate some funds to top it off if it's low or take some out if it's too large. For example, if the US stocks are over 26.25% of the total Krypto Fund, that's 5% off the target 25%. So I look to see what's low & move the excess 1.25% to other asset classes. One has to consider fund restrictions and taxes for frequent moves, but since we have multiple accounts, I have always been able to figure out a way to reallocate. See David Swenson's great book, "Unconventional Success" for a description of why this type of personal investing works well.

I have done long-term investing along this strategy for over 20 years. When I read his book, I was happy to see he agreed with me (joke haha) and I learned about the value of the inflation-protected bonds. So I added that asset class. I also recently became more aware of the leveraged in the real estate classes, so cut it back. I'm not perfect and continue to make changes as I see a need.

I also adjusted my rebalancing trigger to 5% from 10%, as I realized from his book I had been missing many good re-balancing opportunities with a 10% trigger. My percentages were pretty close to his, otherwise. Also, I have some gold & silver for many reasons.

On down moves, I make the re-allocations on the first 5%, BUT if another 5% adjustment is called for because of a down move, I wait awhile. Down moves can be fast & furious, and it's better to let the dust settle. This helped me alot in 2008 and 2009 to get more buying of stocks closer to the lows. In addition, for stocks, once the indices hit intermediate term highs, I make adjustments in them more frequently to keep the %'s close to canonical levels. This "buy-low, sell-high" and "sell high, buy low" intermediate term trading tactic lowers volatility and increases returns to help me stay fully invested at all times.

If some asset class is low, BUT is greatly overvalued, I put sale proceeds into cash as a buffer. Then when the low class readjusts to a more fair valuation, I buy it. This is the case with fixed income bonds and inflation-protected bonds now.

I love that name, The Krypto Fund. I like to think my dog, Krypto, pushes the computer key every week to do the reallocation. She accepts dog biscuits as payment. :-)

This investment methods works well: the Krypto Fund is at all time highs, even though the US stock market is almost 20% below its all time high. That buy-low, sell high and sell high, buy low asset allocation tactic worked well through the Panic of 2008 and the lows of 2009.

Word of the Day

"Quotidian" - adjective [$10]
Quotidian means something occurring daily.
Sentence: Krypto Fund rebalancing is NOT quotidian; I check it weekly, but often a month or more can pass before a change is made.

Friday = Saturday

I am declaring today a holiday, or perhaps a time translation merging Friday into Saturday. Or am I influenced by intense advanced waves from Saturday that my mind now has been taken over by the state function that it will have on Saturday morning?

LOL.

In any case, my post today will simply be a link to the text of Battleship Ben's speech today in Europe (which I listened to), explaining the problems caused by nations that undervalue currencies.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20101119a.htm

I guess Ben reads this blog. It's time for Asia nations to develop domestic demand and get off our back!

Word of the Day

"Profundity" - noun [$10]; Profound - adjective [$10]
Profound means having to showing great quality or insight.
Profundity means the state or quality of being profound.
Sentence: The immense profundity of Battleship Ben's speech today crushes his pipsqueak critics, who are shown to be simpleminded fools with no insights.

Obama's Values

The announcement of Barry's picks for the Medal of Freedom, which is America's highest civilian honor, are enlightening. Here we go:

Warren Buffet - a multi-billionaire. He's done zero for the American common man.
George H. W. Bush (aka Bush I) - he led the repeal of the Reagan Revolution, raised taxes, presided over the 1990 recession, and failed to complete the job in the first Gulf War, leaving a festering mess.
Angela Merkel - the chancellor of Germany. Huh?
John H. Adams, who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, an anti-freedom greenie group that wants to impose crypto-greenie fascism on all common people.
Bill Russell, the basketball player for the Boston Celtics.
Stan Musial, the baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Gerda Weissman Klein, a Holocaust survivor. A naturalized citizen, she recently founded Citizenship Counts, an organization that teaches students to cherish the value of their American citizenship. Klein has spoken to audiences of all ages and faith around the world about the value of freedom and has dedicated her life to promoting tolerance and understanding among all people.
Maya Angelou, a writer-poet.
Jasper Johns, a painter.
Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist.
Jean Kennedy Smith, former ambassador to Ireland. The "Kennedy" names says it all.
John J. Sweeney, labor leader (& bigtime Obama-Dem supporter).
Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent. As an eight-year-old, her parents attempted to enroll Mendez in an all-white school in their community, but were denied entry at and were told to go to the school for Mexican children. Her father and other parents sued and prevailed.
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who helped organize the first lunch-counter sit-in in 1959 and the Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965, where he was beaten.
Dr. Tom Little, an optometrist who was brutally murdered on August 6, 2010, by the Taliban in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, Afghanistan, along with nine other members of a team returning from a humanitarian mission to provide vision care in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan. .

I suppose I'll be criticized for being harsh, but of that list I see only three persons who truly deserve that medal, which is supposed to be the civilian equivalent of the Medal of Honor. Their names are in bold. The others don't. I put some info in italics regarding ones that I see as undeserving. They are so incongruous* to the concept of a Medal of Freedom that the awards are ridiculous.

Barry continues to devalue American values. Can anyone now not realize that he simply does not like the common American man and woman nor their way of life or core values?

*Word of the Day

"Incongruous" - adjective [$10]
Incongruous means 1. not harmonious: incompatible; 2. not conforming; 3. inconsistent within itself; 4. lacking propriety.
Sentence: see * above.

Another Blank Wednesday

Nothing in the news.

Fools lining up for GM paper ... ugh.

I have no fine philosophical thinking to offer today.

It's raining hard & cold here & I have to take the recycling out soon - ugh. I suppose that's a lot better than my 20-something ancestor who lived in a lean-to in Ohio around 1805 in the snow & cold, who went hunting a panther with his older brother with a black powder muzzleloader rifle. Those guys were tough, no doubt. But on days like this, rather than whine, I just think that I'm inherently the same person as them, so tough it out. You are too - you have the same biological and cultural strength that our pioneer ancestors had. Adopt their mental attitude and be a survivor.

Mrs. B bought a two pound bag of "House Blend" Starbucks coffee beans at a local HomeGoods store for $16.99. It's pretty good - small beans with sort of an Italian roast. My first pot will make about four cups. Hmmm ... compared to a $4.50 latte that one has OTHERS make and serve, I break even on the first pot.

Inflation fighting: use your own hands and tools to prepare your own daily food. Even a caveman can do it :)

Word of the Day

"Distaff" - adjective & noun [$10]
Distaff means (adjective) 1. maternal; also female; (noun) - 1. a woman's work or domain; 2. the female branch / side of a family.
Sentence: The great Triple Crown winning horse, Secretariat, showed fine descendants on the distaff line; his daughters were superb mares producing great runners.

There's a Fool Born Every Minute

I don't know who first said or wrote that, but it is being proven true this week as the fools are lining up for the GM IPO. Amazingly, the offering appears oversubscribed and they are raising the price targets and share offerings.

The sheer lunacy of any buyer is certain from the following:

1. The company has roughly zero free cash flow net of unfunded pension & healthcare obligations.
2. The company is controlled by its labor unions.
3. The company looted billions from its bondholders and gave the labor unions a free pass on restructuring costs.
4. The company broke contracts with dealers who had provided good service for its customers for many decades.
5. The company broke a implicit bond with customers by cutting entire product lines and dealer networks, thus orphaning prior buyers with no places to get service.
6. The company's snout in the government trough has antagonized millions of potential buyers of its products - "Government Motors".

Having lied and broken promises made in the past, why or why would ANYONE believe them now? I guess the greed factor in the world capital markets is rising much faster than I felt was occurring.

Oh well, a new top might be a few years away. These trends can go on awhile before grinding out. It took the tech bubble about four years after Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" speech to blow up.

Bunkerman's little birdie is chirping. He will be more caution now about being heavy in equities over recent highs.

Word of the Day

"Defalcation" - noun [$10]
Defalcation means an act or event of the misuse of funds; embezzle.
Sentence: The gross defalcation that occurred in the GM bankruptcy case should give great pause to anyone rational who considers investing in such a company ever again.

Viking Capitalism

As Europe suffered in the ninth century from Viking raids that brought devastation, social turmoil and serfdom, the world today suffers from Viking Capitalism.

What is Viking Capitalism?

Viking Capitalism relies on the ideology of unfettered economic power for whoever can grab it. And that societies should not organize to prevent the raids of the Vikings. Yup, that's right. Societies and peoples are actively prevented from defending themselves from the Vikings. No limits to the power of the few; rules and laws to prevent the common man and woman from effective defense.

This is a mutant of world Libertarianism designed to help the powerful get... more power. It's a naturally occurring mutation, though. The Hayek analysis applied to Libertarianism showed its failure in this specific fault [see this blog's post of October 18, 2010]. Unfettered freedom for the powerful leads them to grab more power and they use that power ruthlessly to prevent others from organizing to defend themselves. This is what the Vikings are doing in the world.

Who are the Vikings ?

Beefers - big, evil funds and their Rulng Class investors; Big multinational corporations; Non-governmental organizations such as the World Bank and IMF; CEO suite hogs; Ruthless intellectuals in the New Class; All those people who meet at Davos every year.

What do they do ?

Organize currency raids on nations. Cause financial turmoils with huge flows - tsunamis - of money flows in and out of nations. Raid capital markets. And trade flows. Free trade lets the multinationals gut jobs and factories in one nation, and move production to wherever they can make it cheaper, often via bribes and corrupt deals in the new locations.

The US has been subject to Viking capitalist raids since GATT. Small nations are hammered by beefer currency raids. The CEOs of the powerful corporations take more and more pay, yet shareholder returns suffer. Pay for the common man and woman worker goes down, despite increasing productivity by them. Those CEO hogs are another class of the Vikings.

The ruling classes use legislation and pressure by world organizations to prevent nations from defending themselves. In the US, legislation and the power groups in DC pile regulations onto business and tax employment in the US. Yet GATT lets the Vikings take jobs to small countries whose leaders they can pressure to gain favors, them freely import those good back to the US, without paying anything to support America. Those corporate Vikings don't even pay US income taxes - they use a barndoor-sized loophole to avoid tax until the money comes back to the US. Of course, it NEVER comes back. The Vikings use that money overseas to create power bases there.

The Viking intellectuals write laws to protect THEIR products and use governmental power to prevent free trade in those products.

Consider this dichotomy:

(I) A factory in Ohio makes a product via the hands of the common man. A Viking Capitalist can copy that plant & product in Asia and bring copies of the product back to the US freely, to gut the Ohio business. The Viking pays no US taxes, while the Ohio plant and workers paid plenty to support America. The Vikings and Ruling Classes say this is good and fine; they get richer while the common man or woman becomes destitute.

(II) A writer of books or software or filmmaker makes an intellectual product in the US, produces and sells it for a huge profit margin. Can a Viking copy that product in Asia and bring the goods back to America to sell cheaply? Nope. Copyright and intellectual property laws prevent it. Government power is used to protect products of the intellectual class. THEIR product is legally protected, but the factories and work product of the hands of the common man is raided by the Vikings.

Ditto the intellectual product of the Legal Vikings. Bar association rules and guilds enforced by judges prevent copying their product. They loot more and more.

Viking capitalism is ruining the lives of billions of people, all for the gains of the Ruling Classes worldwide. People of the world must throw off their fetters and adopt Fraternal Libertarianism - put regulations and chains on the Vikings; take freedom for themselves. Empty the hog trough and use those resources to help the people and small business directly. Stop the Viking raids on US jobs.

Viking Capitalism vs. Fraternal Libertarianism. That's the fight we want. Bring it on.

Word of the Day

"Contumely" - noun [$10] from Hamlet's Soliloquy, Shakespeare. Also "Contumelious" - adjective. Also "contumacy" and "Contumacious"
Contumely means 1. insolent or reproachful language or treatment; 2. disgrace.
Contumelious means reproachful, insulting or insolent.
Sentence: The Vikings want to be worshipped and adored; give them contumely instead. Social pressure can help. Do it, all the time and everytime.

Deep Six the Deficit Commission

You don't even have to read their report. Just look at its members. Here they are:

Deficit Commission Members

NAMED BY OBAMA

ERSKINE BOWLES, co-chairman; Bill Clinton’s chief of staff from 1996 to 1998.
ALAN SIMPSON, co-chairman; Simpson was the No. 2 Republican in the Senate for a decade.
DAVID COTE, a Republican, has served as Honeywell International chairman, chief executive and president since 2002.
ALICE RIVLIN is a former Federal Reserve vice chair who was also budget director under Bill Clinton. She was the founding director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office from 1975 to 1983.
ANN FUDGE, chairman and chief executive of Young & Rubicam Brands from 2003 to 2006.
ANDREW STERN, president of the Service Employees International Union, which covers 2.2 million workers such as healthcare staffers, security officers and public employees.


NAMED BY SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER HARRY REID

SENATOR RICHARD DURBIN, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, from Illinois.
SENATOR KENT CONRAD, Budget Committee Chairman, from North Dakota.
SENATOR MAX BAUCUS, the Finance Committee chairman.

NAMED BY SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL

SENATOR JUDD GREGG, from New Hampshire.
SENATOR TOM COBURN
SENATOR MIKE CRAPO

NAMED BY HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SPRATT, chairman of the House Budget Committee.
REPRESENTATIVE XAVIER BECERRA, from California
REPRESENTATIVE JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois Democrat.

NAMED BY HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER JOHN BOEHNER

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN, from Wisconsin,.
REPRESENTATIVE JEB HENSARLING
REPRESENTATIVE DAVE CAMP

How ridiculous is the composition of that commission? Every single person is a member of the Ruling Classes. Most are members of Congress, person who are coddled and cossetted as no other group. They know nothing about running a business, nothing about actually doing a tax form, and know noting about the common man and woman - their lives and problems and what government truly does, and does NOT do.

For nongovernmental representatives, they toss in a couple CEOs - another group of chief hogs. Does any of them live in a small town? Nope. Does any of them do their own tax form ? Nope. Does any of them work with their hands ? Nope. Does any of them run a business on the ground level ? Nope. Is any of them poor ? Nope. Heck, they are probably all multimillionaires.

Does any of them have intellectual experience in practical matters ? Nope. Can any of them do calculations themselves ? Nope. It's totally dependent on the government for basic information - a fine example of garbage in, garbage out.

That commission is a disgrace and has been a disgrace since the day it was named. Toss that report in the circular file - the trash bin.

Word of the Day

"Consanguineal" - noun [$10]; "Consanguineous" - adjective [$10]; "Consanguine" - adjective [$10]
Consanguineous means (A) descended from the same ancestor; (B) of the same lineage or origin, esp. related by blood.
Sentence: All persons on the Deficit Commission are consanguine members of the Ruling Class.