Occupation of Independence

I ran into a relevant quote while reading Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad."  The context was new soldiers coming into the battle when things look bleakest. Once the new soldier had accepted that survival was relative rather than absolute, and he learned to live minute by minute, the strain eased.  This is something everybody has experienced, I suppose, during a car breakdown, automobile accident, health problem, or divorce. Take it one step at a time until you ratchet your way out of the disaster. It should help to keep this in mind during the economic destruction of the next few years.

  This is just a short post allowing me to practice using the Brave browser rather than the Firefox browser. Once again I am preaching to myself -- out loud and in public -- about becoming a more active investor. It is hard to be an active investor if you are uncertain about the Big Picture. Am I just in denial about the Big Picture? Why not be brave enough to face the grim reality that high inflation will dominate the financial world for years? The Federal Reserve doesn't have the balls to do anything about inflation. Oh sure, it might take weak stabs at raising interest rates to slightly less negative rates. But the first complaint from Wall Street will cause the Federal Reserve to warm up the "helicopter engines" for dropping free money on Wall Street. from zerohedge.com

  It used to be impossible to add a rack to a fully-suspended mountain bike. So if you wanted to bring your canine companion along, you needed to get a bike-trailer. Today there is at least one rack for a fully-suspended mountain bike from Old Man Mountain. I got their (American made) Divide Rack. Even a dog who is a bit of a cry-baby can easily take to a rack, since they are with their man. Almost touching him, actually. I won't go through the obvious details, but there is one thing that goes against common sense. It helps to move the rack/box as far to the rear (aft) as possible. For instance, the photo shows about 5 inches between the rear of the saddle and the front of the box. Sounds like plenty. But it would be nice to increase this distance so the bicyclist can scoot rearwards when descending hills. The magic in this rack is the fact that it doesn't need eyelets (that is, screw holes) built into the frame of the bike. Most of the weight of the rack rests on a customized

The world seems surprised by the effect that fanatical sanctions (against Russia) are having. What a shock this is for the West. People in the West have become almost completely detached from physical reality. They have forgotten that food is grown in the ground, after fertilizer and agri-chemicals have been dumped on the ground. And then the food is put in trucks that burn fuel. Where does the lumber come from?, that is needed to build their 4000 square foot house. Surely it doesn't come from cutting a tree? That would be so awful. They have forgotten what steel and stainless steel are. Does that require mining? Wouldn't that be bad for the environment? They heat and air condition their oversized homes at 72F all year long. Most of the crap in their house is made from petroleum. All of these comforts just magically appear to them. They don't know from where. Nor do they care. To the West, reality is just an assembly of pixels on an electronic screen. 'Work' consis

It is important to choose the right year to be born in. In Europe and North America, you have to give credit to so-called Baby Boomers for choosing to be born between the end of World War II and 1960. Today Baby Boomers might be fairly close to death but at least we really lived when the gettin' was good. In fact I think we experienced peak freedom, peak education, peak female attractiveness, peak mobility, and peak prosperity. There were some setbacks along the way. Case in point is the decade of the 1970s. Still, we caught the last decade or two of Good Times in America: lucrative corporate employment -- stability, pay, pensions, and benefits. We were even able to retire early. But with raging inflation, how will young people be able to retire early from now on? Look at the risks they will be running! My (Baby Boomer) age group could invest during a long bull market on Wall Street. Do you really expect a replay of 1980 -2020 on Wall Street?  We still could look forward to Social