Brexit experts run for cover

For over two weeks, talking heads on financial TV have been poo-pooing the mere hint that the UK would decide to leave the sweaty clutches of the EU. They said the #Brexit would not happen. Too much pain would ensue, they said.


Ha ha.


The British people, sick of the massive influx of middle eastern rabble rousers and economic regulatory overreach from Brussels defied all odds and said "See you mates" to Europe proper.


Congratulations to the leave group. I hope you get what you wish for. To the stay group I'd say the UK has been around for a long time. It isn't going anywhere soon. Keep a stiff upper lip.


People all over the world are sick of the soul-crushing status quo. The political class everywhere has become too fat and complacent. It is blind to how its actions affect real people and businesses every day. Negative interest rates for example. Who do those serve? Big banks and government borrowers. Not you and me.


How can a person like you, who just wants to put some money aside for a safe return, survive on interest of .1% a year? To hell with the status quo.


When you empower people to make rules, that is what they will do. The impact of the rule is far less important to the paid law-maker than setting down the law in the first place. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.


It is truly time to sharply limit the parliaments, the congresses and the politburos. I say they see themselves as licensed to enrich themselves without working, all at the expense of the invisible taxpayer. They should all be reduced to unpaid, part time volunteers. Cover their expenses for 4 meetings a year and that's it. We'd see a dramatic reduction in wasteful, ignorant spending.


The experts were wrong because they are in the same translucent thought bubble as the rule makers. Everyone says the same thing to each other until it seems undeniable. At least in that bubble.


Brexit shows us that things are much clearer outside the bubble the experts and the law makers live in. Bravo to the UK. Bravo.

Feeling good about giving money away.

A member of the stewardship committee for Dayton, Ohio's Annunciation Greek Orthodox church asked me to write about what stewardship (I dislike the word – a lot) means to me. I said "Sure." This is what I wrote:

We give freely to those we love.

And when we give to the church, we aren’t giving to a priest or to the building, but rather to the church family we care about — our loved ones.

Don’t we all take great pleasure in the thought of giving? We don’t give gifts with the expectation of getting something in return. No. Of course not. We do it because we feel joy when we make our family and friends happy.

Isn’t giving grand?

One of my favorite sayings is “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days …” That’s from the Book of Ecclesiastes. It has passed my lips many times over the years. I have found it true, and have seen that the universe, God, fortune, whatever, rewards genuine generosity as a matter of course.

For instance, in times of slow income or a depleted bank account, I give more away; to the church or to a charitable cause. And what invariably happens? More than I gave comes back! And usually quite quickly.

It’s as if the heavens recognize the difficulty of giving despite the real fear of not having enough, and they open up the spigots to return the favor.

Recall those times when you were asked for or volunteered to help. Was there a downside to saying yes? No. You gave freely, made someone else’s life easier or better, and you got to feel good about giving. It was a win-win every time, wasn’t it?

When we give to the church, we are giving to our friends and families. As I write a check or put in festival time, I think of Pete and Trina, Debbie and John, Helen, Tom, Dori, Angela, Nick, and Carrie, and of all the children that I can’t believe are growing up so fast. I give to the church because they love the church and I love all of them.

That’s a win-win. That’s stewardship.

Thursdays

Trivia nights at the Back Door bar in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan used to be my Thursday high point. That was more than 20 years ago. When I think about it I can picture my boozy but very bright friends. We'd go to the bar for trivia, win the contest and its $25 prize and then drink it all back, laughing and joking, and dancing with pretty girls.


Good times.


Now Thursday means the release of the BLS's weekly first-time claims for unemployment report and not much more.


Today, June 9, 2016, the unemployment claims fell by 6000. That positive weekly rate follows last week's alarmingly petite U.S. jobs report.


What does it mean? I don't know. But something is amiss.


My teen daughter has been looking for work at some local outlets and malls. She has talked to store employees and they are mad. The retailers work them past their expected hours and won't give them the flexible time they need, but were told they'd get. One former Nike store employee, a friend of my daughter's, told of requesting two weeks off in July. They asked for the time in the preceding November, eight months earlier. When the vacation time approached, the manager told the young man that he couldn't have the time off because "we have a business to run." Understandably the 16-year old quit. How could the store be so thinly staffed? Hmm.

A different store employee receiving my daughter's application said "Finally!" Again, the employee told my girl that work conditions were demanding and difficult, hardly worth the minimum wage pay. Nobody wanted a job there.


Maybe the latest government reports can be explained by these anecdotes. Workers are only able to get low paying, slave-like jobs because they are the only kinds of jobs available. As sick as they are of their jobs, they don't quit or risk them because there is no better work to have.


That explains the low unemployment claims report. On the other hand, because the available jobs treat employees poorly, and pay barely more than unemployment or welfare, there are few employees willing to take them. That explains the miniscule jobs report and the low, low labor force participation rate.


Unless pay increases, or employers find a way to make the jobs they have more desirable, these conditions aren't going to change.


Happy Thursday.

Alchemy and Dragon tattoos

Seeking is like traveling. You have to look around while you're moving, or you will miss the whole point.


I took a few hours this past week to pick my head up from my seeking to look around and read some books. Of note were "Influence", "Siddartha", "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", and today, start to finish in 230 pages, "The Alchemist."


There is much to commend about any one of these books. Together though, they were like a spicy paella for the soul and the brain.


Reading new material excites neurons and opens the senses. Possibilities not previously conceived explode into being. Motivation and desire that may have sat collecting the stiffness of apathy springs up and says "Let's do it!"


Not a day goes by that I do not see the psychological clicks and whirrs described in Influence. My time next to a river nearly every day reminds me of Siddartha's view of the never ending nature of life, the universe and everything. In my practice the savagery and the inscrutable nature of people reflects right back to the sadistic and self serving characters in Dragon Tattoo. Finally, the crystal merchant in The Alchemist looked up at me today from the pages of the book and said "I am you. Is that enough?"


My personal legend has yet to be written, but I am on the path. Maktub.

Big and small at the same time.

Look down at an ant. It is tiny. Even close up to your face it will be small. Its legs and antennae thinner than hairs. As small as it is, it is to an aphid as you are to it. Gargantuan. Monolithic. To a bacteria an aphid is a skyscraper. And so on.

You may be a 450 pound giant strongman. 6 foot 9 and dwarfing most humans on the planet. But from the top of a 15 story building, your bulk is invisible. Your relative size rendered meaningless. You would be like an ant.

To a toddler child, adults are giant gods. Even so, to any observer, from say 5 miles away, we are all but invisible; unseen even as we walk, drive, love, fight, vote, and otherwise go about living our lives.

All things are this way in this universe; both giant and tiny, all the time, overlapping each state, depending on the observer's perspective.

In this respect we are no different than stars, galaxies and planets. Why would we be? We're all made of the same stuff and in the same place. Gotta love the universe.  Thanks Alan Watts.

Antidepressants = suicide.

 The NY Times reports that the U.S. suicide rate has surged to a 30-year high. A snippet: "particularly among women and middle-age Americans, according to federal data released Friday. The suicide rate for women ages 45-64 increased by 63 percent from 1994 to 2014, while it jumped 43 percent for men in the same age range, according to a National Center for Health Statistics study. The overall suicide rate climbed 24 percent during the period of the study." Hmm.


A 2011 article from the Harvard Medical Journal noted that over a similar period anti-depressant use surged.


The age group and the stupid amount of prescribed "feel good" pills are killing off American adults. It isn't social media or isolation that is killing people, it's self interested doctors earning their pharma bonuses and trips by telling their patients to take a pill to fix their blues. What they should be telling them is to get of the couch, skip the fast food, and for God's sake take a walk now and then.


Nobody can be surprised by this connection. There are warnings with those drugs. They tell users and doctors that suicidal thoughts may result from taking the pills. It's okay though, "they have to put those warnings with the pills", I've heard my doctor say about Cipro, a tendon obliterating antibiotic with a "black label" warning. But he downside risk is too dramatic to be minimized by its probability. All it takes is one in a billion if you're the "one".


The connection is there to see.


The actual side affect warnings should read: "Ingesting this drug occasionally leads to suicide. Not suicidal thoughts, but actual put a gun to your head and pull the trigger bloody-mess suicide."

Great news for coffee and booze drinkers.

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