Thinking Over “Detirement”

This is really a report on faddish Accounting, because it drives so much else. Including retirement. Or, given there is a shortage of workers in the country, de-retirement.

Jacob Soll’s book The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations provided some of the impetus for the ideas herein.

Soll’s  next book, Free Market: The History of an Idea will be released in early September, perhaps just in time for collapse this fall. Free markets are a good idea, but when jobs go offshore – and when vulture capitalism reigns – let alone when we live with a U.S. central bank that “makes up bonds” and they buys those bonds itself?  Well, let’s just say that the “free market idea” gets complicated to say the least.

Which has no doubt been set-up by an excessive focus on pure financializations.

As his first book, Soll points out with genuine historical pedigree, that Accounting wasn’t supposed to be that way.  CDO’s and Enron and whoever will be along shortly…

Instead, accounting was once used in Rome to really imbue excellence in government and in a People.  Behind economic cycles, Soll nails changes in accounting. FASB notions aside, we think of Accounting in  the same light as the Supreme Court.  Not supposed to change with fads, but what’cha going to do?

All useful grist for understanding today’s world.  Though we’ll warm up to it slowly to avoid sudden thinking shock.  Some headlines and this morning’s ChartPack should be the right tonic for that.

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74 thoughts on “Thinking Over “Detirement””

  1. About 20 years ago, my lovely and endlessly patient came home, late, on a Friday from work. She worked for an academic publisher of some renown — gone now.

    It was near the end of a month, and they had been in an “all hands, turn to” mode of order-processing and shipping to “make the numbers” for the month.

    This became a monthly norm. Then, it became a quarterly ultra-push in addition to the now-routine monthly push.

    The total number of orders over any larger time span was unchanged. These pushes just shoved a few “March 3rd” orders into February’s stats, so the numbers would look good for March when the report was compiled.

    This is a small thing, but it’s fundamentally dishonest in the short term.

    The company was sold and broken up into pieces a few years later. Now, it’s gone altogether. The name lives on, but the core Value to the Universe was lost.

    I submit “accounting” is a management and measurement tool in the early days of any honest company. But in time it becomes subverted in an almost political (small “P”) way to Make Somebody’s Point.

    Then practical operations become distorted to serve the needs of the Management-Political axe being ground, and changes its usefulness from being a simple Tool, to being a Master that requires Servitude.

    Once that change happens, the company is doomed.

  2. Question regarding the grow room. Have you thought about using shade cloth when it gets into the hotter seasons? You know salad and most greens are cool temp vegetables. 50% shade cloth goes on the greenhouse in early April here when temps in there can reach high 90’s easily. I have been looking more at different crops for hotter temps rather than trying to get the same crops from hotter temp environment. Still I want to keep on with my lettuce and spinach on demand. Collard salad, um no. Since the greenhouse order was pushed back I have decided to repair and recover the current one. Picking up the chainlink top rail pipe today and a roll of greenhouse sheeting arrives Thursday.
    Semi annual visit with the Doc yesterday. She remains concerned about some of my stats and keeps on suggesting I move closer to town. I tell her I feel great and am having more fun than anyone should be allowed. Then I asked her why doesn’t she move closer to me instead and if she keeps this up my wife will begin to ask questions. She just smiled at me and said, You wish.
    Stay safe. 73

    • We use a 50% shade cloth on our hoop house in Colorado. I covered the hoop house in 6 mil plastic that has held up remarkably well. Now if I could run buried electric (no extension cords please) to the hoop house for 100 feet, I could grow almost year round here on the front range.

    • Yo Jimbo,
      “Collard salad, um no.”
      from the sounds of it – you aint never had the pleasure of meeting Poke Salad Annie, either.
      https://youtu.be/hv6Epy3pjUc

      Poke Salad – Its whats for dinna…soon enough I fear.

      Got (enough)Diesel? Would not believe what I paid for it today in Central America-Belize. Refilling on the half tank…

  3. It’s a beautiful day on the dirt farm today. Stay blessed all you sinners.

    And remember, If it really is a loose farm? Even the most powerful and gifted is still a cow. Hahha

    Good talking to ya. All. And ya Ray, I heard ya.

    • I kinda thought you would.

      You have that ability, grasshopper, don’t ever low-rate the importance of perspective…

    • Dude –
      …. Can you do a fellow Seeker a solid and take a good looong look Douglas Aircraft orig logo – meditate a lil on it – just 1st impressions. Then please look at the Mcdonnell Douglas Aircraft logo- same operation. See that vehicle “taking off straight up ? Ya know the one that was doing the Moon in 1 Hr..translucent walls for viewing on demand, dark side – base pentagon shaped – 20&20 space marines..

      Ever been out to that island off the coast there Seattle – the private parties? SST station miles underground – get to SF in <15 mins, China Lake in minutes..You be in one the "darkest" spots in the MK Ultra world of drugged out & mind fractured kids -that were created/abused mercilessly to make"artificial" "Sorcerers", Monarch sex slaves – hello hil de BEAST. Nobody remembers Admiral Stansfield Turner testifying to 149 programs under MK Ultra, 33 of which were black/dark/MAJ..=clue -33 like degrees from Orion…
      think intergalactic conglomerate (space nazi's) controlled by a larger more powerful intergalactic conglomerate. They be "partner farmers"

      Perhaps jehovah and his peeps chosen will prevail.

      Beware The Z…..its Final.

  4. Uhem *Loosh,

    Maybe we are all just Cosmic cows. From my understanding Cows are deep thinkers tho. Hahahah

  5. “Behind economic cycles, Soll nails changes in accounting. ”

    So George to your point. Is it that this fourth turning/reset/collapse has been engineered[ or hastened] into existence?

    i.e. Stopping the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, shutdown of Pipeline #5, canceling AWAR Oil leases, canceling Gulf Oil Leases, and banning fracking. All of which speak volumes of lengths to which the current regime has taken to ensure energy security for the Pooh Team eh hem typo I mean USA LOL. Combined with record rapidly rising rate hikes, We certainly have a design pattern for something…..

    • “So George to your point. Is it that this fourth turning/reset/collapse has been engineered [or hastened] into existence?”

      Yes.

      How do you know all resets of advanced societies in times immemorial haven’t also been engineered?

      Who writes the history books and upon what do they base their “history…?”

      • Moreover, the idea of retirement to true cynics ? Retirement has been turned into long-term Ponzi scheme thats you get hooked into for 40-years and then need Micky D’s…
        Bitcoin and most retirement systems will be compound interest-murdered in 10-years or less.
        See bond rates for updates

      • Also, “retirement” is a social construct created by Henry Ford. People who retired before the nineteen-teens were the extremely wealthy, the ruling class, and artists and those career military who’d climbed to a position so lofty that others would pay them for their art or opinion, respectively.

        Other than these, “retirement” didn’t exist. Neither did Social Insecurity. You worked until you died, or until you couldn’t work any more (at which time you moved in with family, or if destitute and intestate, either went to the County Home or a Church-based Old Folks’ Home.)

      • “Bitcoin and most retirement systems will be compound interest-murdered in 10-years or less.
        See bond rates for updates”

        A Perfectly plausible, 1980 style opportunity and pivot using zero coupon bonds.

        The $64 question, or is it $6400…then $64M? Whats the swap rate looking like for the FRNs that those bonds are denominated in today when repriced into the forthcoming Treasure Dollar? Which will have a CBDC component to it.

        File under recall of the Mexican Peso…

      • “Retirement has been turned into long-term Ponzi scheme thats you get hooked into for 40-years and then need Micky D’s…”

        Unfortunately George.. my 8 hour shift went well..the job the tasks are not an issue.. I can do the job that tasks were not an issue at all and I would be able to do that no problemat all..but my body informed me that I can’t.. my old physical health issues came back to haunt me. I now know my limits. :-( oh well better to realize where it was going right away than to wait and have it disappointing everyone..

        • Move to online customer support via indeed.com to find leads.
          At least folks up by the Dakotas speak in something understandable on the phone.
          I mostly hang up on Philippines and elsewhere callers.
          But sometimes I take the time to really polish-up my longshoring language on ’em too.
          Just depends on the day, I suppose.

  6. Gasoline here is over five.

    The other day a radio caller said @ seven/gal they’d start riding a bicycle. How large can a city be if everyone is riding bicycles? Bicycles are from 1817 days. New York City had around 120,000 citizens working 2.5 square miles back then. Now it’s about 20,000,000 folks working 3,353 square miles.

    Riding bicycles to work in New York snow storms/Chicago wind/Phoenix heat. The caller is unwittingly welcoming coup living.

    Perception will change.

    Bubblized electric mopeds might be an alternative to increase living radiuses.

    • Had a Friend. Articled Law Degree with congress. Smart, practised infor tech. Smoked B&H Menthols. Said she would quit tobacco at 11 $Can./pac. NOT. Did not happen. You’all be driving no matter what it costs. Send me smoke pirates.

    • Barcelona looks like it has more bikes than residents. Still lots of cars
      on the streets and hordes of tourists who gum everything up

      • Laziest people – country in EU.

        Just gave the Girls 3-4 paid days off for menses every month – workers paradise?

        Wonder why the woke jokes in con-gress have not given same to American working Women (slaves)?

  7. There is a shortage if sriracha sauce due to a shortage of chili. I thought you might want to stock up.

    • BigBox has a shortage of Visine too. Maybe the tetrahydrozoline factory took a high body count during COVID.

    • Not here. We grow our own Hawaiian chilis.
      “Hawaiian Chili Pepper Water”… who needs Tabasco?

      • It’s the Minnesota pepper famine here at my house. Lost all the seed starts to fungus and the plants I bought at the nursery to replace them (ghost, Trinidad scorpions, Carolina reapers) had aphids and now look like maybe developing tobacco mosaic virus.
        I grew Tabasco peppers (similar to Hawaiian?) one year and they tasted vinegary before adding the vinegar! My favorite is the little round Mexican chille tepenas, they grow wild in Mexico and Tex/New Mex. They are almost as hot as the above mentioned ghost derivatives and have a good flavor that is unique. They rarely show up in stores around here and seeds are unavailable. Lucky you, peppers are perennial in Hawaii

      • Pepper Fiend, that was my first taste of a wild pepper, pointed out by a wise Mexican woman, she said you can eat these, so off I go and pick that little, less than pea sized pepper, and popped it in my mouth before she could say, don’t do that!!!! Wow, kamikazie wowie!!!! Mexican Chile Tempenas!!!! They do grow wild in central, Texas and beyond.

    • The new thing to enter into the severe shortage besides baby food… tampons..

  8. Oh I almost forgot to mention,

    This has come up a few times. Someone even sent me a random video of a lady star being asked on the red carpet this question, “if you knew a commit was going to hit the earth in 6 months what would you do?” Her answer was murder. The guy who asked the question laughed said Purge? She laughed and said yep.

    When I did my survey of the web yesterday, I see this vehicle presented alot in the news. “Impact on china” over and over in terms. This impacts China on trade. This impacts on China production. This impacts China over and over. Like your Nastradacodus word find thing.

    You see a truck hitched to a wagon. Impact hitched with China.

    Hmmmmm.

    Maybe it’s just because I’m a driver. Those word frames connect like a tractor and trailer. Impact on China. All these venues on the internet with different articles but all of them joining coupling those words together “Impact on china”

    And 4 times in the last week I have randomly stumbled upon an old timey video taken 4 days before the sanfransisco quake and fire.

    Could be nothing. But I do find it interesting. And I think if there is a comet going to strike the earth in 6 months? The last thing we should be doing is murdering anyone. Not many will survive that.

    Hmmm

    Anyway. I thought I’d mention that.

    Later dude.

    • One has to ponder that the strategic take down of the US is so the Chinese have a pace to go when a comit hits them?

      Hmmmmm. Well, today is a good day. Let’s enjoy that for now shall we.

  9. Say, you don’t think they are shutting down all those refinerys and and factories here, stock piling amo in Alaska, as a launch site for the new leaders of America when they arrive. Nah that is just crazy talk.

    Nothing to see here. There is nothing to see here. Maybe i am a flying monkey? Hahaa.

    But the company i am working for is nicknamed “the red army” because all their side dumps and truck and pups are painted red.

    Hmmm

  10. Ohhhhh so that is what Bad Bunnys stage represents. A tractor trailer, end of the world tour 2032, tractor trailer “Impact on china”…. like ya said George ‘let it come to me”

    All the puzzel pieces fall into place. Giving you the full picture of what creation is saying. Hmmm. Okay Cool. Map complete.

    Now I know how to navigate the future. Sweet

    Good thing I’m line a bristle cone pine tree. LOL

    • Truck, Trailer, and Kubota Tractor.

      Yep, stolen in March by some MS13 gang bangers… walked around our shop with their big bad gun out all ready to shoot an innocent hard working American CAUSE THEY CAN and THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT.

      The police responded to our phone call TWELVE hours later.

      Dirty little secret in OUR Town of defunded police, runaway crime, and open borders is that we are overrun, and these cretins (a person who is mentally subnormal) steal anything they want, and get away with it. They even go on the toll roads with their stolen loot, but no one checks those cameras, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with a toll road invoice six weeks after the fact.

      That’s what tractor trailer means to me. A big huge loss.

      AND guess where they took them to????

      UVALDE, TEXAS.

      Yeah.

      WE ARE BEING PICKED…AS IN PICKED APART, AND STRIPPED OF OUR ASSETS BY THOSE UNDER THE TABLE CRIMINALS, SAME AS THE ONES IN OFFICE.

      • Wow TT, stories like this make me crazy.

        What is happening to America at the southern border? They tell us that it is women and children escaping to freedom but every time I see a video of the mob, it is mostly 18-35 year old single males. I am sure I know which group of people stole your tractor and trailer and it wasn’t the women and kids!

        As I sit here in Trudeauland, knowing the same thing would happen here if these “cretins” decided to migrate cross your northern border, the only saving grace is that these guys don’t like to go out in the elements at 20 below zero and 2 feet of snow to rob and plunder. Crime rates drop dramatically here in the winter time!

        I feel for you man. Brandon and company are destroying a once beautiful and prosperous nation.

      • “gang bangers… walked around our shop with their big bad gun out all ready to shoot an innocent hard working American CAUSE THEY CAN and THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT.
        The police responded to our phone call TWELVE hours later.”

        EXACTLY @Tractor Trailer…
        The ghettos and poorer areas.. where political factions worked diligently to de-fund the only protection protection these areas had.. then open the borders to an illegal refugee hoard from countries that swore revenge by posing as refugees.. then on top of it transporting them giving them economic and environmental assistance..all while forcing the already oppressed financially with the costs of this assistance and telling the taxpayers to suck it up buttercup all while they remove the only protection these people have.. then to top it all off they give themselves higher incomes.. the only time you’ll ever see congressman in chambers lol..

      • LOOB; we are not in a poor area, we are in a supposedly top 3 city to move to.

        They are not poor who are stealing from USA.

        They are thieves.

        Our police have been defunded.

        The city is a Democrat run, Sanctuary City, hell hole and our borders are wide open.

        The law works to let them out and off (that’s IF they go after them).

        Just like Biden is transforming the electric grid across the nation on the backs of the populace who drive gas/diesel vehicles, his administration is transforming the cultural/psychological/language/race ratio on the backs of the working and middle classes leaving ‘open sesame’ drug access/subsidized slave class-wage class for the true ‘poor’ middle class and working classes to pay for.

        We are being overrun and overcome and when they indebt the nation past the hilt (at hilt now), they will overrun and collapse our borders and our currency and our economy.

        In the meantime, watch NY, see all those hoody-mask wearing hoodlums stealing from the stores and walking right out? That’s going to spread across the major cities in this nation: LAWLESSNESS.

        It doesn’t take a psychic to see what is happening.

      • Sounds like the Houston area. My sister-in-law’s best friend and her family moved down there for a better teaching job and her husband got a better job, too. The problem is the illegals are filling the houses down there with multiple families in each house and things are steadily going to hell in a handbag as they turn the area into where they came from – kind of like the Californians do to the rest of Texas with few exceptions.

      • “But I couldn’t make out what they was saying over the chainsaw.”

        You need an Echo DCS5000 battery powered saw. MUCH quieter than the old two-stroke gas type. I bought one after someone else here recommended it. Been using it for a few days, very quietly.

  11. Those Davos blokes and fuhrer schwab are sick dogs . Yep get gold everything is about to go . Banks are gunna collapse and burn

  12. ‘De-retirement’ is one of those things I’ve had on my mind for a while. Not the term, since George invented it, but the concept.

    When I was in high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life (I still don’t), but I knew I needed to ‘do’ something. There was really no question…I was driven but without direction. I didn’t come from money, but no one really did that I knew. We were all poor, but we didn’t really think of that way. It never really occurred to me or any of my friends.
    I always gravitated towards what’s now called ‘STEM’, but I didn’t really try that hard in school and no one in my family before me had gone to college, so there was no family pressure to do that. My dad was basically career Army after taking a long break working in construction and later on news paper printing. He didn’t push the military on me. They were content to let us kids find our path. He did ask me if I wanted to go to college and if I did he could help, but I’d have to do something for myself, as well. So, I decided pretty much on the spot to join the Army as a way to make that happen and more to just keep moving forward. During the first part of that first 4 years I was stationed up near Seattle and realized that I had great love of geology and from there I ended up here. It was a long and twisting road with LOTS of potholes.

    Where I’m going with all of this is that at the time all of this made sense because, if done properly and honestly, it would lead to a solid career, a good life and a decent retirement. Not a bad way to spend this go-around on the big, blue marble.

    That used to make sense, but things have changed. The world has changed and not for the better. I think like a lot of people I thought the world would mostly stay the same. Now, not only is it changing, it’s rapidly spinning into chaos and all bets are off.

    I now think that traditional retirement planning and all the money saved will be for naught. No 401k or military retirement payouts and definitely no government programs like social security or Medicare.

    Over the last few years, I’ve shifted my thinking to the distinct possibility that the real currency I and my family will need in retirement is investing in health and autonomous/self-sufficiency in all life support areas. Exactly what George and Elaine have done for themselves. I’m quite a ways down that road and plan to keep going as long as possible, but there is much left to do and I feel time is very short.

    • I think you’re exactly spot on.

      The point of difference between those that do get it and those not, is that parents have a great role in shaping a person’s view of money.

      Which is to say it’s just one more tool – and while the Soros/Gates type can buy whatever talking heads will take money (more than a few I’d wager!) the fact is when comes down to On the Ground when TSHTF, I’d be good with my consigliere, Oilman2, and my son as personality types. All useful skillsets, with or without money.

      Which people can’t seem to get through their heads.

      Pappy taught me skills. Way more valuable than teaching “money.”

    • “traditional retirement planning and all the money saved will be for naught. No 401k or military retirement payouts and definitely no government programs like social security or Medicare.”

      Boy @Maj13.. your spot on..
      Our parents set us down at the table and did the budget.. it was what they did..
      For retirement..when I got sick they told me it had to be used for medical.. Medicare only pays so much ..if you pass your no longer here and no longer eligible for benefits..from what I’ve observed it’s the same with military..
      Big companies let you go if your sick and drop you from medical insurance.. then t he hospital and doctors play pitter patter on you azz as they take it all..
      I’m fretting whether or not I can work without my health taking a hit..yet I can’t even pay car insurance with what we have to live on..
      One place made the comment that they were afraid that I wouldn’t be as fast as an 18 year old..lol lol job service said that 50 year old and above are not real employable..
      So it’s been a real challenge this past week getting things situated..
      I do start a part time gig in a half hour.. I just hope my old ways don’t re-emerge and I take on more than I can or my body breaks down again..

      • I’m in my mid-50s, and lately I’ve seen quite a few of my classmates announce their retirement from some cushy gummint job, and think, wow, if only … My only retirement plan is funded by social security, so I don’t expect to ever retire. I had a decent 401(k) a while back, but cashed it out to pay off a mortgage, which meant there was equity in the house and in 2010 I had to give the ex one half of the equity in the home, plus half the gold coins, etc., in addition to having no more retirement account.

        Joined the army right after high school, and after a dozen years there I found work in multiple professions as a government contractor (first company hired anyone with a pulse and a clearance). In 2014 I cashed out some of the gold coins I bought in early 2000s (some good advice from George) and overpaid to buy back my Grandfather’s estate (f**k Wells Fargo and their reverse mortgages).

        Anyway, back on point, I see these fresh retirees and realize they’re gonna be hurting financially in the near future, while I have 20 acres in East Texas bought and paid for, and my wife recently started working as a waitress at a restaurant owned by a friend because he was having trouble finding good help, so we have plenty left over at the end of the month to add to the preps, and we’ve have been places and seen stuff those nine-to-fivers can only imagine – Australia, Antarctica, and South America are still on my bucket list (been to the other continents, thank you fellow taxpayers). I even met Ron Paul and had a beer with Scott Ritter this past weekend in Houston, and saw Jimmie Vaughan perform. Like George is always saying, it’s the experiences that you take with you.

        • One of these days, we will have to explain why really smart people are moving to backwaters like Palestine TX…
          Could it be some kind of natural attractant here for higher IQ people willing to assert positive action to own their own future?

    • Same here. Dad was still active duty when I graduated HS. Did the same, taught me skills and the difference between right and wrong. The rest was up to me. Went to college for a semester and figured out as long as I didn’t have to pay the bills all I would do was to keep the party going and waste mine and everyone elses time so I enlisted in the Army and sort of followed Dad’s path, but after jump school I find myself in the southeast asian conference where I decided nope this is not the way for me. But I did my full 7 year commitment. Got some really good training and experience then got out and used my GI Bill to finish college. The rest they say is history.
      Wouldn’t change a thing.

    • This is less a direct response to MAJ13, and more a general discussion.
      I’m going to suggest something a little less bushcraft, life goal, or jet-set oriented. The key personal issue is parking your ego before you head out the door on a de-retirement job hunting expedition.
      Find a job doing something you are experienced at, but without supervisory responsibility, or an inflated title. This can sometimes be easier for professionals than individuals who made their mark in bully political positions. It doesn’t hurt to be looking for something you tolerate, if not enjoy. Don’t take a job you have hated previously, thinking something has changed; you probably haven’t.
      Look for a zero travel job, with some benefits. Leave the airports and angry customers to the younger guys. Office work is easier than shop or field work for oldsters. I do see a lot of oldsters doing transport locally. Stay away from overnight and freight requiring lifting.
      Trying to start your own new business at 55+ involves risk.
      The goal is to find something you can still do well, even if you are not at the top of your game, with a short commute to the house.
      Sometimes these opportunities fall into your lap. I suggest going for the interview in slacks and a camp shirt. Not sure what to advise the girls. Don’t over-dress for a low to mid-tier position.
      There are a lot of production facilities who need experienced hands that don’t need to be trained, and will take less money. If you are on the dole, you can make yourself more competitive by negotiating a reduced benefits package.
      This all may be ego heresy, but it can make the days go by more quickly, and extend your monetary reserves substantially. Being old and running out of scratch is a b!tch. The “traditional” retirement delusion never planned out for the average Joe. You may believe yourself to be extraordinary, and you may well be, at least until the money runs out, and then you get aquainted with your elder average Joe roots. Energy costs may yet make an average Joe retirement a hellish way to end up.

  13. The gurus all avoid me . That’s fine . The only 2 constant guys are george and Ackerman. Respect both . Thanks

    • “The gurus all avoid me .”

      @Len daquino…????…are they avoiding you.. or is it just that they doubt their ability to interpret what your saying?
      I know I can get be a cocktail sparrow at times with an odd sense of humor and what I say goes over the top of people..
      So..are they avoiding you or just don’t know exactly what your saying…

  14. Thank you, George, for posting the information yesterday about winter squash. If people take it to heart and get some in the ground now, I’m sure many lives will be saved. My regards to the Captain.

  15. “Because in the event of a Big knock-down financial event, Unionization will be back bigger than ever.”

    I don’t think so. Between 1910 and 1950 we had a serious need for factory workers and teamsters — and unions flourished.

    Now, we’re getting “robotized” and it won’t be long before trucks load, drive, and unload themselves. Employers will simply tell unionized workers to pound sand, as they buy more and more machines.

    Alternatively, we’ll blow ourselves back into the 18th Century, and everyone who survives will have no time for anything besides food, shelter, and protection, so laborers will cease to exist and factories will languish until their function and purpose die out.

    Either way, “unionization,” like mental and sexual aberrations, are exercises of a working, “leisure society.” For unions to exist, there have to be people working, and the few hundred supervisors who oversee the robots which repair the working robots aren’t enough of a social sample to establish any sort of viability for the existence of a union.

      • True, but they’d have to have enough food in their bellies that they had the strength to left the shovel, and in this kind of dystopian world, lifting that shovel might be a capital crime.

        I don’t trust politicians or oligarchs. I don’t envy them, but I also don’t believe any of ’em are EVER altruistic, unless they receive more money or power than they give away. The Sam Walton types, are no more. There’s no telling how legal and moral systems would be fashioned in the world these new-type bastards are building. Based on what I’ve seen so far though, I do not believe individual Rights or Freedoms (or your 7 systems) would play a significant part…

  16. PBGC… I flew for United for 30 years. The projection for my retirement income was big. When United went into bankruptcy after 9/11, the PBGC entered the picture. The pilot retirement held $1.5 Billion and was fully funded by the ALPA contract. The PBGC notified us beneficiaries that “if everyone retired today, the pension fund would not cover the promised pensions.” Ahem… all pilots were not going to retire that same day… the furthest Retirement date out was 2029. Didn’t matter. The PBGC took the $1.5 Billion and put it in their coffers to fund operations. They didn’t take the fund from Continental Airlines, but they did freeze their pilots benefits. After the United/Continental merger, the UAL pilots get a penny’s on the dollar PBGC payout, and the CAL pilots get an annuity payout from UAL for the value of their frozen pensions. So now I’ll have to detire to keep going. Everything’s a business model… and I’m not in the club.

      • United took the stimmy payouts to keep employees on the payroll… I was offered 50 hours of pay/month and medical benefits until March 2023. The stipulation was I couldn’t fly an airplane. I could go to another airline, but would have to start at the very bottom. LOL

        25000 hours of flying time, and starting out again.

        Fortunately I bought a lone coin in 2004 and have held on to it. I’ve always lived below my means and saved like crazy. Now I’m glad I did. My mindset is I’ll survive.

        Ironically, after reaching 65 and officially retiring I could apply at the training center as a ground instructor… just no job at UAL until turning the magic age.

    • That’s really sad. Can you teach? Flight skills translate across so many different areas. Like critical thinking and common sense. Lots of folks need those skills now more than ever.
      Good luck, sir.

  17. “Further, given the high persistence in both real and nominal interest rates documented in academic research and PBGC’s projection horizon, also consider a random walk model for real interest rates similar to the one PBGC implemented in 2014 for nominal interest rates.”

    This bothers me, because it looks like PBGC is tooting their own horn. If they are, their data and findings will become tainted, and the taint will incrementally build until the organization and its projections become worthless…

  18. USA Watchdog interview with Edward Dowd.

    https://usawatchdog.com/cv19-vax-deadliest-fraud-in-history-edward-dowd/

    Wide-ranging interview that covers the Covid fraud, the pharmaceutical companies and what’s going on with the huge uptick in deaths.

    In the economy and what’s coming, Dowd points out, “What’s going on is we are basically at the end of the super bubble. . . . We are going to have to have a new economic system . . . and what’s going on is the collapse of that. The defaults are coming, and they are going to start in other countries first and make their way here. . . .It’s going to be a disaster, and we are going to see a huge amount of defaults, bankruptcies and collapse of the economy. . . .99.9% of the world does not know the social contract has been broken. What does that mean? It means all the entitlements, social security, the pensions, and there are a lot in Europe, they are gone. They are not going to get paid. That’s the bottom line.”

  19. “FASB notions aside, we think of Accounting in  the same light as the Supreme Court.  Not supposed to change with fads, but what’cha going to do?”

    I worked with a station manager who had previously been a sales manager and was proficient with spreadsheets early on to keep track of the accounting she was overseeing. She kept her own offline computer and wide tractor paper printer for doing her work. Simple, straight forward accounting… income…outgo. When a new software company installed a station management system with accounting, logging, and various sundry station requirements, she kept her own set of spreadsheets yet. After six months running the new system, she found discrepancies between her numbers and what the new software system was reporting… so she called them on it, thinking something was in error.

    When she called the tech support and explained that she kept her own books with the same data as the new system, but gets different outputs or totals. The first thing the tech rep asked her was: “Why would you do such a thing?” That kind of made her mad, and she told him in no uncertain terms that she was checking up on him! He wasn’t helpful. So next she reported this discrepancy to the corporate business manager, who had ordered the new accounting system. After a mysterious delay, the corporate business manager called her to explain that they had looked into the discrepancy and explained to my manager that “accounting is complex” now days, and certain things need to be re-categorized for tax purposes, and yada yada that is why the numbers don’t match…. Because my manager had ‘incomplete information’ about the accounting.

    She threw up her hands and let it ride. “There’s ONE bottom line they cannot change, and that is the amount of sales money I have brought in to the station,” she said. “I wonder if I will get commission on that total?” Sadly… she didn’t.

    As for growing things, in my neck of the jungle the daily temperature range is 65-85 degrees F. Looks like optimal range, with no energy inputs (except the sun) year round. Add 130 inches annual rainfall and … POOF! Instant Jungle! All I need is deep enough topsoil on top of the lava rock.

    • Yeah – this EXACTLY Jacob Soll’s (first) book (Reckoning) in a nutshell.

      Accounting at its core is honest. But around the edges? Offshore Pops and tax dodge Don? This is where the cancer moves in from.

      Now corruption of accounting is endemic. Declines are made to appear as growth, investment is research collapses yet somehow there’s research going on in shipping….

  20. Comrades,

    “Only Angels Have Wings” from 1939 broadcast here the other night with its trick coin ending. Like The Muppets’ Two Headed Monster, some puppeteers have played not only one, but in some cases both heads, over the course of time. We live in a two-faced world.

    Today’s headlines on Russia’s VK are classic. It seems online voters have clicked approvingly for the Moscow Duma to proceed with renaming the square adjacent to the US and German embassies in Moscow as DNR Square after the breakaway Donetsk Republic. China’s Huawei is in the process of shuttering its outlets in Russia while the software giant from Redmond although downsizing “will continue to fulfill its existing obligations to Russian customers”.

    Sanctions are working. Thank goodness the Russian oligarch behind VK and an early Facebook and Twitter investor was able to receive a favorable ruling from the US Treasury last fall. Now according to the Forbes rich list, he appears as an Israeli billionaire. Russia? Nyets all, folks!

  21. So the Administration barred Venezuela’s Mr. Maduro from the Summit of the Americas? Now he has shown up to great fanfare in Turkey!

    Meanwhile, Madrid’s “El Pais”, controlled by an American billionaire interested in a global governance model, notes an easing on Venezuelan oil shipments. According to the report, the US State Dept. sent letters last month to three oil companies. They can commence limited Venezulan oil production so long as the oil goes to Europe.

    Well, back to the Summit of the Americas and more tough talk via the teleprompter.

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