536 CE

A group of interdisciplinary scientists and historians got together to look at the history of coinage and found something else—the year 536 CE was the worst time to be alive.

Fascinating findings:

• ·         A fog descended upon Europe and lasted for about 18 months
• ·         With darkness came widespread crop failure and famine
• ·         Plagues took hold after famine
• ·         Summer snow fell in China; 70% to 80% of the population perished
• ·         Scandinavians abandoned entire cities
• ·         These events sealed the fate of the already-weakened Roman Empire
• ·         The Peruvian Moche civilization never recovered
• ·         Coincides with the Mayan Hiatus when expansion and building stopped
• ·         Tree rings around the world show years of slow or no growth
• ·         Took about a century to recover
• ·         World temperatures between 536 and 545 were the lowest in 2,000 years
• ·         Now known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age

Causes: 

• ·         A volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 was the cause, initially
• ·         Another one near San Salvador, the Ilopango volcano
• ·         Another one in North America
• ·         Two more in Iceland in 540 and 547

Results:

Much of the world’s population was eliminated. Historians think the Ice Age and its resulting famine reduced the ability to fend off disease and a plague erupted in the Byzantine Empire in 541. Not unlike the Black Plague of the mid-1300s that killed 25 million in Europe, also following famine.

Conclusions:

The eternal hand-wringing of the 24-hour news cycle has instilled a sense of dread and panic in people and tragically affected our young people huddled over their smart phones. Compare to 536?

While the warming of the earth is causing disruptions, the last part of this current Ice Age doesn’t seem to carry the death impact of a good old-fashioned world-wide series of volcanic eruptions followed by famine.

A friend from years ago was the first I knew to refer to the current state as a “CO2-enriched” atmosphere. Good for plants. Good for food. Volcanoes/Ice Age—bad for plants, bad for food.

BTW, whatever happened to “anno Domini” (AD) and “Before Christ” (BC)? Now it’s current or common era (CE) and before current era (BCE). As dictated by ISO 8601.

SEPTEMBER

Can’t believe the summer is over, another one in the dust. Little Big Man counted his age by the number of “summers,” and there’s another one gone.

The house in Virginia Beach closed on June 30, two full months ago, but the moving process started earlier than that, so some version of chaos for over four months. It has been the most difficult move of my life, partially because we seem to accumulate more “stuff” all the time and partially because the physical work is getting harder in my mid-70’s.

Actually, the realization that I just can’t do some of the physical work is part of the difficulty of this move.

And then there is the HEAT. Corpus Christi is a very hot place. What the hell did I expect, you might ask, but “heat indexes” constantly in excess of 100 degrees, sometimes reaching 114?!! Yeah, more than I expected.

Read a great book that Marcee loaned to me, “Winter Garden,” that has (ironically, given the weather here) as one of its central themes the fight against intense cold. Specifically, the record cold winters of the early 1940’s during the German siege of Leningrad that lasted nearly 900 days (1941-1944) with over 3.5 million casualties. The civilian deaths in the Leningrad siege exceeded the civilian deaths in Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Not the typical book I read, but pretty powerful stuff.

This is a repeat, but I find it to be astounding that Russia suffered 20 million deaths as the result of Stalin and Hitler. Stalin and his Communist regime must qualify as one of the most-evil in history, and the effects were apparent during the Cold War and still today. Fact: Western Europe’s economy is ten times the size of Russia’s. The population is 140 million, one-tenth the size of China and one-third that of the US. Virtually all the men, regardless of age, were either killed in the war or starved (men don’t survive famine as well as women), and today there are 11 million more women than men in Russia. Alcohol is the biggest enemy right now.

I realize that Russia is corrupt and the government is basically an extension of the criminal element, but please, people, can we get our politicians to quit obsessively concentrating on Russia and figure out what to do about China? Fortunately, our military understands that China is THE threat for the future of our world.

Yep, another Russia/China rant. Sorry.

AND JUST LIKE THAT, 1969 WAS 50 YEARS AGO

And in that year of 1969, I was 24 years old, married, college grad (but I didn’t know anything) and the first child on the way.

Now, it’s later. The year 2019, and we are just unpacking in Corpus Christi, Texas where Linda’s son has been posted by the Navy after completion of his command tour (CO of VFA 103, A/F-18F squadron out of Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA). Glad to be here, but sincerely, may have one move left in me, but not many more.

It is likely that we will end up in either the Atlanta area or the Charlotte, NC area as the plan right now is that Danny will retire from the Navy at 20 years in early 2022 and get a job flying for the airlines. There are other potential outcomes, but time will tell. Since grandson Bradley is one of only three people who Linda knows of that share here DNA (most of us can count in the hundreds that we know of), we will be close.

Meanwhile, we are trying to find the time and energy to visit all the grandchildren as much as possible.

Other than being extremely hot (duh—it’s south Texas in August), we have really enjoyed CC so far. For one thing, the people are really nice and very friendly, a departure from the East Coast (don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed Va Beach a lot).

Here is a surprise: we had a 40-year old man, said he was a Mexican, his girlfriend and his buddy help us unload the 26’ U-Haul truck and 12’ trailer that we drug from VA. Again, they were good people and friendly, but the surprise is that they wanted to talk politics, particularly presidential politics. The buddy was a pudgy white guy with a bushy red beard who you would expect lived in his mother’s basement and played computer games all day. The girlfriend was…well, let’s just say she was not a Fulbright candidate but nice enough. To my absolute amazement, without prompting from me they launched into a full support dialogue of President Trump and his policies and total disgust with the Democratic candidates. Special disgust for “The Squad” and the leftist media.

Again, I was not leading any of these comments, and Linda was whispering for me to get them to shut up and just work as we were paying them by the hour. Truly, though, they worked hard and steady.

I thought that was an anomaly. A few days later, cable guy shows up. Mexican. Here for a few weeks to help out, but born, raised and living in “The Valley.” In these parts, that is the Rio Grande valley. You are probably not believing me at this point, but he pursued the conversation on politics, and started it by saying he voted for Trump and so did his parents (his father was born here, his mother in Mexico). He is in his mid-20’s, wants to go back to school, probably to study business. In his words, the media “thinks we’re stupid” and believes that any Mexican or Hispanic person is uniformly a Democrat.

He echoed my observation—Mexicans work hard, know how to work with their hands, go to church and are family oriented. They are not interested in hand outs.

Wanted to let everyone know that we are getting settled, here is the contact info:

Bob and Linda Peterson

6513 Picante Dr

Corpus Christi, TX 78414

Phone numbers the same, 913.238.2298 and 816.885.1849

rpeterson@nbbcompany.com

rpeterson2298@gmail.com

lpeterson518@gmail.com

The Economist

The Economist

Sometime in the 1970’s, I had a subscription to The Economist magazine. Why, in the face of poverty did I find the funds to buy a subscription? I just don’t know, but it was an education. Thank you, The Economist, for sharing erudite information and a unique perspective on the world. For one thing, it began to solidify my skepticism on the state of American journalism.

These people are not only smarter than me, they have good information and they know how to use the language to communicate that information.

For example, this (please be kind about their spelling and capitalization customs):

Why, a strategist from Mars might wonder, do Europeans doubt their ability to defend themselves against Russia without American help? The total gdp of nato’s European members is more than ten times that of Russia, which has an economy about the size of Spain’s. They spend three-and-a-half times as much on defence as Russia, which has lately had to cut its budget sharply because of a broader squeeze on its economy. True, Russia has 13 times as many nuclear warheads as western Europe has, but surely Britain and France, the two nuclear powers, have more than enough to deter an attack?

For decades Europeans did not need to worry about the Martian’s question, because America’s commitment to their defence was not in doubt. That has changed. “The times when we could unconditionally rely on others are past,” Angela Merkel told the European Parliament in November. She echoed the call of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, for “a true European army”. In January the two leaders signed a treaty between France and Germany which includes a mutual-security pledge similar to nato’s Article 5 (as well as Article 42.7 of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty).

Did you know that NATO’s European members have GDP ten times that of Russia? I didn’t know that. It seems that Putin is not only the leader but the mascot of Russia—puffed up bigger than they are, the Phillies Phanatics of world leaders and nations.

Did you know that Russia has an economy the size of Spain? I didn’t. So why is it a big deal if they sell natural gas to Western Europe?

Texas, on the other hand, has a diversified economy that exceeds Russia’s by about $400 billion. California is much larger.

Why are the Democrats obsessed? Dunno. But they should start to worry about China rather than Russia. China is the real deal, not some puffed up façade. For example, Texas has a GDP of about $58,000 per person; Russia, $8,700. They, the Russians, are, however, among the world’s leaders in corruption.

A final perspective about Russia. They currently have a population of about 140 million, say 10% the size of China. Roughly a third of the US. Between Hitler and Stalin, they lost 20 million people in the WWII time frame. Not a family in Russia escaped violent loss and much of their country was devastated. No wonder they were angry and hard to get along with during the Cold War. Now they have about 11 million more women than men…maybe due to alcohol? They got issues!

Trump said the US provides over 70% of the resources to protect Europe. So-called “fact checkers” despise Trump and will skew facts to support their positions. They cite that the US provides a much lower percentage of the NATO spending. True. But NATO couldn’t exist without our ability to perform air-to-air refueling, provide aircraft carriers, and a whole host of services that do not exist in the other nations’ arsenals. Basically, if NATO were a house, members other than the US would provide the furniture, the US would provide everything else—the foundation, the roof, the frame. You get the picture.

Again, Trump is right, the “fact checkers” are wrong.

Another factoid—only a handful of countries in NATO live up to their pledge to pay their “fair share” which is a factor of their GDP. Greece is one, but it is pretty easy when you have very little GDP. Germany does not. Not even close. But they posture, provocatively.

If you want an informed perspective on the world’s affairs, read The Economist. Worth it.

PERSPECTIVE

Do you ever have trouble maintaining perspective? Sometimes it seems my life is the hardest, the most confusing...and then I talk to someone else.

Danny has been ordered to Corpus Christi, Texas and they will be moving. We will be following, although we will take some time to do some time in an RV. Plans keep changing, we are adjusting.

So, a neighbor stopped to talk. "Ya hear about the shooting? Twelve dead!" He was there. He was paying his real estate taxes. "Oh."  Whaddya say?

How ya doon? His mother-in-law had surgery that went bad, she died in a few weeks. His wife had a brain tumor. The litany went on. I failed to mention that I have had quite a bout of toenail fungus.

Do you ever think about how lucky you are? I should do that.

I should do that. Yep.

COLLEGE GRADUATION

We were invited to a graduation party this evening, a really nice affair for the daughter of our friends who happened to be from Nebraska!

A young person, starting out with an education from a stellar school, the University of Virginia. Surrounded by friends and family.

I remember the hot day in August, 1968, fifty-one years ago when we were invited to stand up; sit down; now you're a graduate. No parading across the stage for us.

The people who attended my graduation ceremony at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska were few, and it dawned on me this evening that I am the only survivor of that bunch--my ex-wife and my parents are gone. My brother might have been there, too, but he's gone, too. I doubt that he was there, nor his wife, Carol, who is also gone, because it was August and farming needed to be done.

Things change over more than half a century. Here's to the next half century and a flourishing life for Allie, the young lady who just graduated.

CHINA

Last Friday, May 5, China sent a cable to Washington responding to a draft agreement between the two economic superpowers. That cable contained several key changes from earlier positions by the Chinese. The key change involves China's refusal to pass laws that enforce the provisions of the Agreement that would have put teeth into what has been weak promises over the last many years.

The changes required by the U.S.:

• Stop the theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets
• Stop requiring forced technology transfers
• Change Chinese policy that essentially prohibits competition
• Provide access to financial services
• Stop currency manipulation

President Trump speculates that the Chinese are backtracking in hopes of negotiating with Joe Biden or one of the weak Democratic candidates. He, therefore, is instituting an increase in the tariffs from 10% to 25% on Chinese goods in the near future.

The trade war hurts our farmers, especially those hit hard by flooding. Congress must do something to assist those small businesses besides giving them loans that must be repaid with interest (don't get me started on what the government provides to illegal aliens). These boosts also hurt some U.S. companies, like Caterpillar, which in turn is a kick in the pants to Linda's retirement plan.

The estimates of what the Chinese have stolen from the U.S. on an annual basis is in the billions of dollars. Even Trump's provisions do not expect that anything will be "fair" or "even." But what the Chinese have done with alacrity over a long time is ridiculous.

Consider that any tough negotiations will be curtailed if any of the Democratic candidates are elected. The Chinese will be home free.

Oh, and BTW--if the Chinese find the F-35 that the Japanese crashed into the Sea of Japan a couple of weeks ago, they will not get the technology harvest that the press has anticipated. The military did not sell the highest level tech to the Japanese because they are not as stupid as...well, some others.

LIFE ON MUSCOVY POND

The Muscovy duck pair had another bunch of ducklings a couple of weeks ago. Eight at first, then seven, then a single baby left. This morning, the mom was in the yard multiple times, and made a noise that is sort of like “quacking” but not quite, they are known as “mute” ducks.

She was calling for her baby. Then across the lake she would fly. Then swim back; fly over; fly back.

She wasn’t looking for food, she was seeking her last baby. Sadly, gone.

Life on Muscovy Pond is sometimes cruel.

ANOTHER DESPOT BITES THE DUST

The dictator of Algeria has stepped down after months of demonstrations.

The world cheers another victory inspired by the "Arab Spring."

Take a look at the results, though. For instance, the Egyptian government is now so dysfunctional that the historically precious sites have been left unguarded. Looting is unchecked, and that history will soon be lost to future generations.

Go Arab Spring!

Maybe the solution isn't as good as the current situation?

Nebraska News

I went 80 stories deep on Yahoo! and found all kinds of drivel, but not a word about the floods in Nebraska. Flyover, ya ain’t nothin’.

I looked at the first 82 stories on ABC news, and found that there was a story about weather in Syria, but nothing on the floods in Nebraska.

On CBS News, there was a story out of Fond du Lac Wisconsin, about flooding, but no mention of Nebraska. Close enough, I guess.

CNN…well, you have to wade through stuff about how brilliant AOC is, and how Ilhan Omar is the best thing since canned beer…but you guessed it. No mention of the flooding in Nebraska. Whoops, there is a mention but not a lead. Below the story on who Cory Booker is dating.

They all carried lead stories on how gun laws need to change.

They all carried lead stories about the 737-MAX-8…which were all fundamentally wrong, you will see.

And we wonder why we should doubt these news sources??

Fox was no better.

If you haven't heard, the who eastern part of Nebraska is under water. The Union Pacific main line is stopped, bridges washed out. Roads are gone, bridges gone. Billions of dollars of damage, one would think. Then talk about the calves that perished, it is right at the beginning of calving season.

Let’s talk about the 737-MAX-8. Notice that the accidents were with third world airlines? Why, you ask? Well, the First Officer in the Ethiopian Airlines crash had about 200 hours. I have more hours than that, and I am not qualified to deal with an emergency on any airplane, let alone a sophisticated one like the MAX. My prediction, supported by some, is that they will figure out that all they had to do was turn off the autopilot. We can get into the anti-stall prevention software, but turn the auto pilot off and fly the airplane, guys. Save a lot of lives.

But the media says Boeing is at fault. We’ll see.

AWWWW, SHOOT...or worse

Just read that Bobby Knight is in declining health. Then the story intimated that he may have some form of dementia. Knight is 78, not much older than I am. Hits home.

I admit that, while I've not lost my marbles, the bag holding them has a hole and they are leaking away.

Crap.

I don't want another celeb to fade away.

NORTH KOREA

Our friend, Kim Joohoon, tried to bring me up to speed on facts about both Koreas, bless his heart. We hear so little truth about North Korea that it was an eye-opener for me.

North Korea was “richer” than South Korea until 1970. From the early days of the Japanese occupation that started around 1900 (I don’t remember the exact dates), the Japanese recognized the natural wealth of the North. That is where the rivers are, the minerals, coal, farms, the stuff that feeds a civilization. Grand sums of capital were invested in the North during the occupation which ended, of course, as WWII ended. Meanwhile, the South was mountains and a small strip along the coast with fishing villages.

President Trump said there was no need to continue the summit as Chairman Kim Jong Un wanted too much. There was no common ground. This is, in my experience, how negotiations go. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

In the press conference, President Trump spoke of his regret that there was no way to proceed. He said that North Korea had so much potential and he would like nothing better than to lift the sanctions. Now if Kerry and Obama were in charge, would we proceed to get some sort of thing like the Iran Deal? It is difficult to get information, though, as the press is more interested in Cohen and AOC.

Speaking of the Japanese occupation, read about the Rape of Nanking to discover what kind of brutality the Japanese dumped on their subjects. Koreans alive today have parents and grandparents that were slaves. It ended within my life time…barely, but still within my life.

Another factoid that I think we have talked about on this forum is the way the US helped South Korea leap out of the disaster that was the Korean War. We needed help on the ground in Viet Nam, and paid South Korea significant sums to provide troops and goods. In most emerging economies, from Eastern Europe to Africa, wave some cash and the rulers start opening up Swiss bank accounts. Park Chung Hee was undoubtedly a dictator although we prefer to call him “an experienced president,” but he took the money and invested it in heavy industry, ship building, automobiles and the like. Outfits like Samsung, Hyundai and others are the result. Admirable.

Don’t count Trump out. This shines a brutal spotlight on the idiocy of Chairman Kim. Even China is getting a bit impatient with his petulance. We’ll see.

DRUG PRICING

Everybody is bashing the drug companies, about the only time we have heard House Democrats, Senate Republicans and Donald Trump agree on anything.

https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/goto/evaluate/news/basicNewsStory.jhtml?symbols=ABBV&storyid=201902261145RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_L1N20L117_1

Any kind of medication is anathema to me—my preference would be to never take medicine again. That is not a reasonable strategy, however, if you want to prolong your life and have good quality to it. For example, my friend has rheumatoid arthritis, and when he took Humira for 6 years, he found himself to be “normal.” Humira quit working eventually, the RA attacked his lungs, he had a transplant and is now on anti-rejection meds that will prolong his life further. He has a tremendous brain, it is not only good for him and his family, but for society that his life has been prolonged.

My dad died of the complications of multiple myeloma. They treated him with steroids and he lasted about 6 years from diagnosis to death. Another friend was diagnosed with MM 30 years later, and he perished 14 years after diagnosis. Another eight years due to a drug that was roundly condemned by EVERYONE, and rightfully so—thalidomide. Well, he called it “Son of Thalidomide” as it is a slight variation, but many of us will remember the checkered past of that drug. For those of you who don’t know:

·         Invented by German company in 1961

·         Marketed as sleep aid for pregnant women (seemed to treat morning sickness, too?)

·         Caused thousands of babies to be born with tragically deformed limbs

·         A horror show

Now, over a half-century later, with another drug, it is used for leprosy and for MM. My friend said that the precautions warned that women who may become pregnant should not even TOUCH one of the pills.

The drug companies claim they spend billions of dollars on research and development, and the process of getting a drug tested and ready for market is made more complicated, expensive and difficult because of the tragedy of thalidomide and others. Congress, the President and damned near everybody else wants the drugs to be nearly free, despite the obvious impediments.

I know this is leaning into the wind, but a lot of this looks like political theater. None of those politicians want one of their loved ones to be denied medications that work. But we would prefer that they just materialize out of thin air.

Again a discussion where I have little or no background and should just be quiet, but that hasn’t stopped me yet. Wonder how much those folks would pay to find a cure for ALS and MS? Hope a couple of my correspondents who do have background in medicine/pharmacy enlighten me.

OPPY

The little Mars rover, Opportunity, designed to operate for about 90 days, continued through skill and determination on the part of the operators and the engineering built into her for nearly 15 years.

But a dust storm evidently got her. Her last words, “My battery is low and it is getting dark.”

Remarkable work.

As the years pass by, those words apply to some of us.

POST SCRIPT, August 2020: I just discovered that Snopes labeled this communication from Oppy as "False." Seems that it came through the space from the planet Mars as a bunch of pluses and minuses and was then translated into a bunch of data. The little lady didn't actually speak in a voice and say those exact words, instead the words are the human interpretation of her data. Did anyone actually think she spoke those exact words? Snopes can be pretty dense sometimes.

THE OLD TABLE

We had a simple dinner this evening. We sat around the “kitchen table” that has been in constant use since we have been together, nearly 20 years, and before that by my family since 1940.

From 1940 until the 1980’s, it was where the meals were served on the farm, at least three per day (it was the custom to have “lunch,” the fourth meal, at 4:00 in the afternoon since it was late by the time the milking was done at night). There weren’t many celebratory meals, that was not the way things were done. Mostly, just hearty food, ordinary meals.

It is beginning to show its age, nearly 80 now. The top has a bit of a crack, it has been refinished multiple times, the last when Linda stripped several coats of paint and refinished it when we were in San Carlos. A ceiling lamp fixture fell on it and left a divot. The chairs are needing repair. There is a metaphor there, probably, as I approach my mid 70’s.

Do people retain, repair, reuse the objects of daily life today? I’m not familiar with others, but not many drive a nearly 20-year-old car, either. We read about the government employees that were not paid and suffered during the recent shut down, and I wondered why none of them had enough ready cash savings to withstand a financial setback.

The average Federal worker makes $84,000 per year. Many, I assume, are two-paycheck families, as is the way Americans operate today. But no food? Not able to pay for daily living for a few weeks?

Wonder how many of them have ancient tables and old cars?

That is a real “old fuddy-duddy” thing to wonder about, isn’t it?

ROGER'S GONE

Loss of a friend

It might be stretching it to call Roger a friend. Does it qualify if I haven’t seen him for 50+ years? I’m going to persist in that conceit, though.

Roger and his brother lived on the farm that was directly west. “Louie’s place.” He was two years younger than me, we were pals and then they moved away and I didn’t renew the acquaintance until high school.

He was a freshman, I was a junior, he played defensive end and I was the corner linebacker. The opposition found out early that if they swept that end, they could send three blockers at me…seems Roger, a skinny freshman just flat-ass disappeared! He became an excellent athlete, but that was not his shining hour and I got the tar beat out of me that season.

Move to next season. I was a senior, it was the first date with the girl who became my spouse for nearly 25 years. It had rained for days, the field was sloppy and it was raining hard the whole game. We were ahead by a touchdown, the Silver Creek QB went back to pass on the other side from me, and when he threw it, it kind of squirted up in the air and I intercepted at the 2 yard line. My coach nearly had a stroke as I ran past the bench. I guess my eyes were the size of saucers and I was running as if the demons were after me.

Well, I collapsed in exhaustion in the end zone, it would have been the longest interception return in Nebraska that year, but Roger in his enthusiasm pushed a kid from the back. They said it was 10 yards behind me. I couldn’t see. Hell, at this point, I can tell the story any way I want…nobody remembers and the ones that would remember are either senile or dead.

I remember my future wife when I came out of the locker room and we went to Columbus for a burger. Wet, wet wool sweater (cheerleader stuff) and hair plastered down. I was no prize.

Roger died in October 2016, his wife was kind enough to email me. I had found an address and sent a letter. He was a character, I regret that we never had contact for all those years. Going to his house to listen to the 45-rpm Claude King recording of Wolverton Mountain at highest volume…over and over.

Riding around in the 1938 Ford he got when his grandmother passed. It was ok, except that the front seat, a bench, was not attached. When he accelerated, we flipped back. He kept hold of the steering wheel, brought us back and his foot hit the accelerator and we went back. Laughing and laughing. At the Rodeo Grounds.

I often marvel that I reached maturity the things we did with dangerous stuff.

Well, he’s gone. No more swapping stories. Maybe later.

NUDIST RESTAURANT...AND WALLS

Nudist Restaurant…and walls.

“We will remember only the good moments.”

The Daily Skimm reports that the only nudist restaurant in Paris is closing because who wants to eat in a restaurant full of naked people. The answer: apparently no one.

NOTE TO SELF: ask that question ahead of time?

On a far distant note: Senators Schumer and Pelosi (also Clinton) voted in favor of the 2006 Secure Fence Act. $50 Billion. It passed 80-19 and President Bush signed it. Later amended to remove parts of the second fence, apparently the money was squandered spent.

The obvious question for any American is how people can be so untruthful and disingenuous? But another question—one of the “truth” websites rates this “half true.” Why? Because the bill was passed in a pressure environment where it was the lesser of two evils. Like today isn’t a bit pressured?

Does that fit Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) “morally right” agenda? Sorry, girl, what you may consider morally right (stoning someone? Killing anyone who doesn’t believe in the Koran?) isn’t a good guide, especially since that has changed and been debated over and over for centuries by every culture.

Slavery was considered not only an economic necessity but morally right a while back. There were 380,000 Africans captured and imported to the US. There were 4 million sent to Brazil. Of course, the sugar plantations needed lots of them since about 10% died every year due to the heat and the work.

AOC apparently learned very little during her education.

DAVID EINHORN

DAVID EINHORN

The billionaire had a bad year, down 34% in 2018.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hedge-fund-all-star-david-einhorn-posts-his-worst-year-ever-losing-34percent-in-2018/ar-BBRI1l8?ocid=spartandhp

He hasn’t done well in the last several years, as it turns out, and the article doesn’t delve into the “asymmetry of numbers” issue that becomes very important when you have large losses. An example—when you lose 34%, you have to make 50% to get back to even.

One of the measures of a good money manager is how they perform in down markets as that performance defines the long term.

Note that Einhorn recently became a critic of Tesla, “…comparing the electric car maker to his famous call on Lehman Brothers.” Must have been reading my blog from a few years ago?

A/N: I was first disgusted with the Tesla phenomenon (aka, begging at the government trough) in 2013 or 2014, and first wrote about it here in 2017. Then, the stock was in the upper $300’s and market cap an astounding $60 billion. Today, it is down 8% as they missed their delivery targets, and market cap is about $57 billion.

If you go back and read old blog posts on the subject, it seems that Elon Musk has received $176 billion in subsidies for the wind power business. Couple that with the electric car fraud, and we may be comparing him to some of the most prominent and damaging shysters in the history of the US.

David Einhorn was heralded as a genius. That star has been tarnished. I’m predicting the same for Musk.