The Canary in the Mine

Before we had modern air detection devices for mines, the miners would carry a canary into the mine. If the air was bad and the canary died, the miners could leave and save their lives. 

While this is an overused cliché, sometimes the old clichés are the best clichés. 

Looking around the economy I see plenty of dead canaries. Here is one from the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday reported a $5.2 billion quarterly loss and said it was nearly out of cash and likely to exhaust its government credit line in coming months.  

The agency said the loss was its widest since it began releasing quarterly financials in 2007. But Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the Postal Service would do whatever it takes to maintain its operations, even if that means defaulting on a second multibillion-dollar retiree obligation in as many months. 

How can a monopoly lose this much money? 

One reason is that the Post Office is required by law to fund the retirement of postal workers—really in a sense pre-fund the workers' retirement. But only about 50% of the loss seems to be from this source. 

While the Post office should fund its retirement benefits every year, pre-funding 75 years of retirement over 10 years does seem excessive. It should fund the annual increase in obligations every year, like other government agencies. Oh, wait a minute, that is not true. 

This brings us to my main dead canary for the day. While the budget deficit is reported as 1.3 trillion, in fact it is much larger. The unfunded liabilities of the government keep growing. How large a deficit are we really running? No one knows. I have heard estimates that it is ten trillion a year. I doubt it is that large, but who knows? The only way to know is if you have a crystal ball and can predict future unemployment rates, future interest rates, and so on. In any event, it is clear that the true deficit is two or three times as large as is admitted under modern bogus accounting rules.  

A good example of what I am talking about is Part D Medicare. Bush rammed it though the congress. The main argument I heard in favor of it was that the Democrats had a worse version of it. Right. Bush, with one signature, added ten trillion to the unfunded liabilities of Medicare. I will not be pushing “like” on Bush's Facebook page anytime soon. This may be the single worst act of any president ever. 

About once a month at my house I have to sweep a dead bird off my back porch. I have very large windows and the birds think that the window is open. Get your broom ready folks, for soon the canaries will be dropping like flies. 

What will be the effect of the total unfunded liability of Medicare? We will find out in 3 to 7 years when the government defaults. 

Man of God

While I am sure this song was written about Bush, it seems to apply to Romney and Obama as well. 

Tyrant of Syracuse

I just finished attending my 40th reunion. One of my classmates mentioned that she was tired of the politics on Facebook and commented that I was one of the worst. Sorry, but guilty as charged. I will try to do better as I remember the story of the Tyrant of Syracuse and the old woman.

Dionysius was a terrible man, known for his cruelty. He held the ancient office of Tyrant of Syracuse, a city in Sicily. Prayer was offered to the Gods for his death as he fit the title of his office well, but one old woman prayed for his health and a long life for him.

Impressed, the Tyrant sent for her. He asked about her prayers. The old woman said that when she was a young girl the Tyrant back then was terrible. She was pleased when she heard of his death. But his replacement was worse than he was! She suffered under this tyranny, he was after all the Tyrant, and prayed for new leadership. Her prayer was answered in her middle years. The new Tyrant was even worse than the old.

This was why in her old age the woman prayed for Dionysius’ to have a long reign and good health. She knew that his replacement would only be worse. Dionysius was too embarrassed and ashamed to punish her.

As we get excited and head unto this most importantest election ever, remember the Tyrant of Syracuse.

We Are Already at War with Iran

One reason I will not vote for president this year is that I do not think there is much difference between the two candidates that have a chance of winning the election. 

I have three issues that I think are important. 

I wish we lived in a world where every country had appropriate labor and environmental laws. In such a world, I would support free trade. We do not live in that world. China pollutes the air and the water with little or no regulation. In such a world we need tariffs. Obamney supports free trade. 

We are spending our way into national bankruptcy. Tweddledeebama thinks that we can grow spending by 5% a year, Tweddledumney thinks we can grow spending at 4% a year. This is nuts. It will not happen. 

The final issue that concerns me is the coming war in Iran. While Romney appears to talk more bellicose than Obama, it really does not matter as we are already at war with Iran. 

All Things D had this to say on our war with Iran:

It is a big package of software that apparently offers an attacker something like a Swiss Army knife, because it can do a lot of things that might be called for. It can monitor a computer’s network traffic, including tracking which Web sites are visited, and log and copy email coming in and going out. It can turn on a computer’s internal microphone and record conversations in the room and presumably send audio files of those recorded conversations to someone who will listen to them. Ditto with a machine’s internal Web cam. It can record what characters are typed on the keyboard, thereby capturing sensitive information like passwords and other user credentials that can be used later. It can capture shots of what is being displayed on a computer’s screen.

Seen in the wild some weeks back, the Washington Post, citing Western intelligence officials, reported today that Flame was created by the combined efforts and resources of the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies. The story matches and fills in some details on reporting by the New York Times on the same subject.

Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians are three blind mice.In other words we have already fired the first shot at Iran in league with Israel. All Things D Continues:

First, if the U.S. views attacks in cyberspace the same as other attacks, then how is a country being attacked supposed to see that? If the U.S. reserves the right to respond to a cyber attack with an air strike, does that not mean that Iran can do the same thing? And if the U.S. is launching attacks, shouldn’t there be some overt public acknowledgement of that fact? Yes, I’ll grant, fighting with bits is preferable to fighting with bullets and bombs, but if it’s the Obama Administration’s position that fighting with one is legally equal to fighting with another, shouldn’t one be done as readily in the open as the other? Warfare requires a degree of public approval. Espionage doesn’t.

If the US does something that they look at as war if done to the US, isn't that war by the US' own definition? 

While Romney talks big, Obama has already started the war. Does it matter who is elected to finish the war? A vote for Obamney is a vote for war. 

Me, vote for war? To quote a fictional figure from Melville, not his famous whale but Bartleby, "I prefer not to." 

Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede

While in Branson, Missouri last month we decided to go to the Dixie Stampede. The Dixie Stampede is a dinner show where the audience is divided into two teams which represent the two sides in the Civil War. My family rooted for the South.

Our team was the best in the various equestrian events, as was only appropriate as our side, the glorious South, was better than the North. Barrel racing, chuck wagon racing, and a relay race were among the events. Our Southern children were much better than the incompetent Northern children in chicken herding—we won the gold medal! Our side’s pigs even won the pig racing contest, twice. “Our pigs were better than your pigs” was our exclamation.

The food was good, but a word of warning—they do not give you silverware, so take your own.

While they did the disappearing fake audience member magic trick, I started to think. Thinking is probably a mistake in such a venue.

As we pounded our feet as we cheered our side on, I was thinking about the obligatory American Indian tribute we had seen earlier. While the North and South had many disagreements, the North and South did agree on one thing. The Indians must be destroyed. We needed the land. I pounded my feet with a little less vigor.

As we cheered our pigs to victory, I began to think. Does it really matter which pig wins? I cheered a little softer.

Was it really appropriate to take a war that killed 600,000 people and turn it into chicken herding or a three- legged race? (Where did they get those uncoordinated Northerners?) I did not participate much in the shouting contest.

Toward the end we had the typical Branson patriotic number sung on video by Dolly Parton. It was the same tape I saw at a previous Stampede 10 years before. This was before Dolly had ruined her looks with botched plastic surgery. I wondered how much longer our national plastic surgery could go on? Our national plastic surgery, the elections, will probably fail and we will end up worse than before.

Yes, the Civil War was bad, but now we can join together as Americans! Hurrah. Instead of killing each other, now we can kill other people.

I stopped cheering.

Does it really matter which pig will win the race? Does it really matter which overlord we elect? Are we, Republicans and Democrats, and yes even Libertarians, cheering meaninglessly for our side? Even if our side naturally won, are we so vain to think it matters?

If you vote for the lesser of two evils, aren’t you being evil?

Even if “our” pig is better than your pig, does it really matter whose pig wins?