The Fence

     As soon as I lifted the post hole digger, I knew.  My neighbor had just gotten bids from different fence companies for his fence, and had settled on one he liked.  And here's what I saw on the section of fence which we shared: the old fence was down and removed, the post holes dug, the new posts put in and the concrete poured, all in a day.  One day!  Hmm, maybe I should call that same fence company, which I did, and before long, I also had a new fence (the owner did tell me that I had done a good job of maintaining our nearly 40-year old fence).

     When you think of a fence, you tend to think of something meant to keep things out (or perhaps in, as with prisoners and cows).  A fence also hides things, maybe you sunbathing in the back, or people peeking at your kids or animals (or, nefarious characters planning to break into your home via the backyard).  But as long as we're talking about hiding, let's peek at that big, beautiful childlike name given to a serious budget, that of our government.  Hidden deep in the back of its 1000+ pages are these words, which if the bill is signed, would become law:  No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued.  So what, you ask?  Wrote the dean of Berkeley's school of law, Erwin Cheminsky: Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored...This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts.  The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts.  Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.  So you may still be saying, so what?  Except that Trump is facing many "contempt" charges from various courts, and this wording may render many of them, as dean Chemisky wrote, "mere advisory opinions."  Powerless...

The weekly numbers: Barron's

     And what else is in this bill?  Wrote former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich: Medicare cuts ($500 billion), people projected to lose Medicaid benefits (nearly 9 million, including many of those on food stamps), amount each of the wealthiest 0.1 percent will gain from this bill per year ($390,000), amount lost each year by people earning between $17,000-$51,000 (about $700).  And our deficit?  Well, everyone is in debt so why not send our country even further into debt (the bill is projected to push our debt to $40 trillion  over the next 10 years).  So again, big deal.  We're the US after all; except our urge to retract and charge others to send us their goods (tariffs) seems to be producing the opposite effect in Asia.  Wrote Bloomberg: South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong between them have net international positions excluding official reserves of more than $5 trillion...Last week’s downgrade of the US sovereign rating by Moody’s Investors Service, along with increasing concerns about the fiscal effects of the Republican tax bill now headed to the Senate, may spur some investors to rethink how much they deploy in the US.  Hong Kong pension fund managers were among those this week discussing the implications, as was the Philippine central bank...That would leave US debt on a path to exceed even the 1946, post-World War II record.  But the article also added: At the moment, there’s little sign the American public is prepared to reward politicians determined to shrink the deficit, which many economists argue will need to incorporate significant tax increases, something that appears to have replaced Social Security and Medicare (which also need reform) as the third rail of American politics.  So again, what's the big deal?  Can't we, as a country, just follow Trump's lead and declare bankruptcy if things get too bad (Trump has declared bankruptcy for his businesses 6 times, telling Newsweek in 2011: I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they're very good for me.)  In the case of his Atlantic City casino filing, wrote a government report: Trump "kept a $2 million annual salary after the company emerged from bankruptcy and took in more than $44 million in compensation over the course of the 14 years he served as chairman of THCR.  His "workers" at the casino lost all of their retirement funds, wrote the report (a judge threw out their class action lawsuit).  

     Now, as my British wife would say, before you get your knickers in a twist, this isn't really all about Trump, or what economists thing may happen, or whatever word the extreme far-right is coming up with now (since "woke" is now as dated as an Egyptian mummy*), but rather it's a time to again step back and get on that merry-go-round (or roulette wheel) of history, because here we go again.  And why would I say that?  Three things came to mind in these past few days: Dilbert (yes, the cartoon strip), a book on famous sayings by mob (yes, that mob) bosses, and a history of the Vikings (at 787 pages, the book Embers of the Hand seemed a bit daunting but proved fascinating since the Viking culture was far from the marauding, sea-faring scallions we've read about...or has Trump already ordered that to also be deleted from our history books).  So to begin, who would you think said this?  Don't worry, don't worry.  Look at the Astors and the Vanderbilts, all those big society people.  They were the worst of thieves, and now look at them.  It's just a matter of time (Mob boss, Meyer Lansky, was pointing out how philanthropy covered up their many sketchy transactions).  In the book Make Him An Offer He Can't Refuse by Carlo DeVito, the author wrote: Since the dawn of time, there have been honest, hardworking people looking to better themselves, their situation, and their community.  With each generation, man has hoped to better his lot for his children, and we as a species hope to come to some betterment, taking one more step forward as a group.  From this same time, and step-for-step with this same theme, criminals have always been among us.  There have been gangs and bosses since the time of the Roman Empire.  Men have seen the holes in the things our society provides or allows and have often used their brilliant minds (and their lack of morals) to provide for the population that which they would outlaw among themselves.  Now contrast those words with those of another mob boss, John Gotti: When I think of the American Indian, I think of their courage, strength, pride, their respect and loyalty toward their brothers.  I honor the reverence they share for tradition and life.  These traits are hungered for in a society that is unfortunately plagued by those whose only values are self-centered and directed at others' expense.

Dilbert by Scott Adams

    So let's jump to Dilbert, well, Dilbert's creator Scott Adams who wrote: I keep reading stories about CEOs of large companies who make hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options.  There is some debate as to whether this is appropriate.  One argument is that these CEOs are visionaries, uniquely qualified to create spectacular stockholder value.  Another possibility is that CEOs are just showing up and shuffling things around until something lucky happens.  I'm leaning toward the "showing up and shuffling" theory.  I'm not saying CEOs are dumb.  Put yourself in their shoes.  When you're a CEO the only information you have is what your subordinates give you.  And they're all unscrupulous sycophants.  The last thing you'd ever hear is the truth.  So there you are, a powerful CEO astride some mammoth enterprise, armed with no useful information whatsoever.  You know you have to do something but there's no way to know what.  Your only rational strategy is to do random things until something lucky happens, then take credit...if you act randomly, reorganizing for no particular reason, promoting idiots, merging unrelated businesses, spinning off a few divisions -- that looks like leadership.  It's leadership for the simple reason that your employees never would have made those changes on their own.  Later, when something lucky happens, you can take credit.  If nothing lucky happens, call it a transition period.  Five years ago, an article in Yahoo Finance wrote: As a real-estate developer, Trump had a reputation as somebody who relished the dealmaking but not the everyday work of running the companies he bought.  “In business, he would focus for about two or three days before the closing, and after that he would lose interest,” one former associate told the New York Times for a 2016 analysis of the Plaza Hotel bankruptcy.  Trump himself has admitted this.  Hmm...was that "D" in Trump's name meant to stand for Dilbert?

     And finally the Vikings.  As Eleanor Barraclough wrote in her book, Embers of the Hands: We are taught to think of history as a series of canal locks, each period neatly compartmentalized from the one before and after.  Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and so on.  Quite often the locks are defined by the deaths of rulers, famous battles, the arbitrary ticking over the centuries.  And just as the canal waters of history flow obediently from one lock to the next, so they stay within their geographical bounds.  It is neat, and, to some extent, necessary.  It is also artificial.  In reality, history is more like a great untamed river, a flowing entity, shifting and branching, merging again, wild and unpredictable.  Its streams do not always have clear beginnings or endings.  Nor do they always stay within the geographical boundaries set out on a map.  And the ordinary humans bumped and bounced along by its currents do not always know where they are, let alone where the river is taking them.   As David Grady mentioned in his Ted Talk, we suffer from MAS: Mindless Accept Syndrome.  And, in his broken Spanish, he called for us to simply stop and say: No Mas!  As John Lennon noted: Living is easy with eyes closed --misunderstanding all you see.

     So why bring all of this up?  Perhaps because the recent India-Pakistan conflict highlighted rising tensions between two nuclear powers (not to mention Pakistan's Chinese aircraft easily shooting down 5 of the French jets used by India, reported CNN).  Or was this because of the media censorship in Israel where a recent poll showed that most Israelis felt that "fewer than 10% of Gazans were going hungry," wrote The Conversation (independent humanitarian agencies report that 90% of Gazans are facing severe food insecurity).  Continued the article, while more than 35% of articles from Israeli media have been partially redacted and almost 10% completely censored in 2025: ...online platforms such as Facebook and X are designed to promote posts that reinforce users’ preexisting beliefs, resulting in an echo chamber rather than exposing people to diverse viewpoints.  Or was this related to all of the recent Saudi Arabia "deals" made on Trump's recent visit because, as Barron's wrote, Saudi Arabia is in a bit of financial trouble (what??).  Said Natasha Kaneva (head of global commodities strategy at J.P. Morgan when interviewed by Barron's: We have Brent at $58 by the end of 2025 now, and West Texas Intermediate (the U.S. benchmark) at $54...In 2027, Saudi Arabia will be hosting the Asia Soccer Cup -- and then, in 2029, the Winter World Games, and the World Cup in 2034...they are building five stadiums (for the Asia Cup) and for the World Cup, they are building fifteen...The window for the Saudis to do this (increase oil production) is 2025 or early 2026...Producing nine million barrels a day at $80 makes sense (for Saudi Arabia).  But producing nine million barrels a day at $60 makes no sense.  One has to wonder if Trump's deals (including contracts for hotels/golf courses and a $2 billion investment in his son's new fund) included an agreement to slow down U.S. oil production (the U.S. is the largest oil exporter in the world) in order to prop up prices for OPEC?   Added analyst Kaneva: In 2026, shale production will be declining.  If we are correct on prices, between July of this year and July of next year, there will probably be about 100 fewer rigs in the U.S. (Barron's did later speculate that Saudi Arabia may in fact be using Trump to crash the oil market).

     Or was all of this simply a glimpse of times past when Germany invaded Norway and pulled Britain into the war?   Wrote a review in the LRB (of the new book by author Kit Kowol): The national government resulted in the effective suspension of ordinary party politics...Even if they had been appeasers, most Conservatives accepted the patriotic necessity of the war, but had many different ideas about what its outcome should be, some as optimistic as any socialist dreams of the future and some downright dodgy.  Over five years, Churchill’s abilities as a strategist were tested and he sometimes failed, but he was triumphantly successful in creating a narrative, the heroic story of an island people resisting an evil tyrant and leading Europe to glorious victory.  This was later challenged by historians on the right such as Correlli Barnett and John Charmley, who claimed that the war was a calamity for Britain, with consequences from near national bankruptcy and humiliating dependence on American financial support to industrial decline, Soviet domination of much of Europe and the loss of empire...Kowol suggests that this stemmed from his belief that ‘a close alliance with the Soviets and an early “second front” attack on Western Europe would in the long run protect the British Empire from excessive American influence,’ but this scarcely explains Beaverbrook’s praise of Stalin in a BBC broadcast as a great ‘judge of values’, or his assurance to the House of Lords that there was complete religious freedom in the USSR and no antisemitism. This wasn’t long after Beaverbrook [1st Baron Beaverbrook, powerful media mogul] had told an American associate that the London press was largely under Jewish control, and that ‘the News Chronicle should really be the Jews Chronicle.’...Churchill rendered Attlee a great service with his disgraceful broadcast warning that a Labour government wouldn’t allow free expression of ‘public discontent’ and would ‘fall back on some form of Gestapo’.  The Tory manifesto stressed ‘the positive nature of private enterprise, the centrality of family to national life’ and the continuity of Britain’s institutions, but this wasn’t, Kowol says, because ‘Conservatives were short of transformative visions or radical policies.  Rather, the Conservatives’ problem was the excess of radical options –from proposals for a new corporatist economic and social order to dreams of a new kind of Christian state– and the incompatibility between them.’

     When times begin to get too rough for countries --high debt, fractious fighting within the population, discontent with government leaders-- the cure-all can often be a decision to go to war.  This tends to unify the populace, temporarily dissolve economic troubles, and give the impression that government Jugheads are somehow leaders who have to be followed.  Not always, mind you (Vietnam and Iraq come to mind, especially since not a single Iraqi was involved in the 9/11 plane hijackings).  But war today would likely mean the involvement of nuclear weapons, whether small or large.  Countries that are tired of feeling pushed around (Russia and Iran), countries tired of feeling second-rate (China), or countries being run by somewhat inept leaders (too many to mention), but with each having nuclear weapons (including Israel), it is a bit worrying. 

     Speaker David Brady added in his talk: People might start to change their behavior, because you changed yours.  But I found myself preferring the words of Jesse Colin Young: Some will come and some will go; we will surely pass...we are but a moment's sunlight fading in the grass...You hold the key to love and fear, all in your trembling hand.  Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.  It may be difficult in these times, but we need to try and change our outlook and our behavior, and to remove our blinders...and indeed, right now.

  

*The new far-right term trying to make its way into our everyday vocabulary is "populist," although most of these populist parties are far from representing majorities.  Still, such "populist" movements are making headway around the world, from Indonesia to Poland.  And here you have to hand it to those spin doctors for finding a word that somehow brings to mind the word "popular," all with the goal of making small factions appear larger than they actually are...the tactic worked when the far-right made "socialism" a bad word (worth looking up its definition in the dictionary), just as they used "communism" in the 50s and 60s, and are now using the word "fascism."  But as The London Review recently wrote: The accusation can be a way of masking the failings of our political systems, from which far-right populism emerged.  Nice spin...form your party then start accusing the other side of becoming it.  Meyer Lasky, where are you?   And now that words such as capitalism and big government are already on the chopping block, watch for new words to begin floating around.  Maybe...Musketeers?  Mara Fargo?  Ex-Pat(riotic)?  Re-PUBLIC?  The world is your oyster (but only in months that end in "r").  

Addendum (a fancy way of saying P.S.): While the link below IS a post from my nephew's son, his views on Memorial Day --what it actually means and how it's meant to be celebrated-- are worth mentioning (and I likely would have done so with a post that came from a stranger).  Perhaps this is because of the near mockery of the day which came from Trump, who dodged any military service 5 times (the same number as Dick Cheney) for an ingrown toenail or heel spur or cut on his lip...who really knows.  But my grand nephew is both a veteran of the Iraqi war and a serving paramedic instructor, so he both sees and saw a lot more life (and loss thereof) that us average folk could claim...take a peek: Memorial Day.  And to be fair to Trump, I freely admit that I have nowhere near the expertise that he does...of driving a golf cart.

Added note: for those just reading, this update arrived from Bloomberg about another "hidden" clause in the proposed new budget bill: Buried in the more than 1,000-page tax-and-spending bill that Donald Trump is muscling through Congress is an obscure measure that’s setting off alarms on Wall Street and beyond.  The item calls for increasing tax rates for individuals and companies from countries whose tax policies the US deems “discriminatory.”  This includes raising rates on interest and dividends earned by investors who are potentially sitting on trillions in American assets.   Analysts say the “revenge” measure, as it’s quickly becoming known, would further drive away foreign investors  (emphasis mine) at a time when their once ironclad confidence in Treasury bonds and other US assets has already been shaken by Trump’s erratic trade policies and the nation’s deteriorating fiscal accounts.  “We’re already dealing with a market where Treasuries, to foreign investors, probably aren’t the most attractive investment,” said Michael Brown of Pepperstone Group, a brokerage firm founded in Melbourne whose clients are all outside the US.  Brown said he got so many client inquiries that he put together a report on the measure.  “If you’re now talking about massively unfavorable tax treatment, then it’s just another reason to stay away.”  Among those potentially affected: institutional investors including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and even government entities, as well as retail investors and businesses with US assets.  —Ye Xie and Liz Capo McCormick