The Silent Generation

 If you grew up prior to 1945 (particularly in the early 1930s), then you are labeled 'the silent generation' or the 'traditionalists'.  In simple terms, you survived the depression-era.

It's an interesting era, and I will advocate three books to give you insight of the landscape:

1.  Rabble of Dead Money (Morris)

2.  Dancing in the Dark (Dickstein)

3.  The Forgotten Man (Shlaes) (Note: Schlaes wrote a pretty interesting book on Calvin Coolidge which is worth a read).

It is an era (1920s/1930s) that we really don't discuss much, and some of us (ages 50 and above) probably got 3,000 lectures on how to live a simple lifestyle....enjoying baloney sandwich and bottle of Coke as a fest.

Shoes tended to last five years or more....because you went back to the local cobbler to fix the sole.....for a buck.

People learned to enjoy booze after prohibition ended....particularly gin sours.

If someone drove 500 miles for some show or vacation, it was a major deal and locals would spend two weeks talking about so-and-so's BIG trip.

Trampy women....were trampy women.

95 degrees on a hot July afternoon was supplemented by fresh lemonade with ice cubes.

Mae West oozed sex in a fairly provocative way.

Someone taking the Memphis train to NY City, was treated like royalty upon their return.

If you asked a guy about what could break on a car of the era.....there was not a infinite list....it came down to 28 things which could be screwed up.

People got hyped up on politics just once every four years, for about three months. 

You'd have guests on the front-porch who actually read a book or two over the past month, and wanted your opinion on 'The Werewolf of Paris' (one of the top novels of 1933)..

Artie Shaw had the number one band of 1938, and people would sit by the radio and listen to his tunes.

A 65-minute movie with a one-star script about two guys arriving at a wild west saloon situation would captivate your imagination and be the talk of the town when it was shown in 1937.

People continually talked for months about when FDR's programs would finally 'click' and save the nation.  Then they patiently waited, and waited, and waited.

A dime in 1937.....would be a value of $2.10 cents today.  

We rarely go and really think about that era.

Yeah, About All That 20 Mile Walks To School Chatter

 Elon Musk says:

"This is I guess the reason why our grandparents could sort of walked 20 miles in the snow because they had Coca-Cola with cocaine." 

I sat there for a while.....pondering that.  

Never had cocaine....but I've worked around some folks who did have it and were fairly focused.  If you asked on 'filling sandbags' measurement (something Air Force guys hated to do).....these folks probably could fill 2.5  sandbags for each one I would fill.

Maybe Elon is right, but then....should we go to legalizing cocaine?  Should we ask Hunter or Joe on opinions about the topic?  

Elon Chatting

 Elon Musk said yesterday: "The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter."

I sat and pondered upon this.

Most everything that President says or does (even back to the campaign period)....was choreographed, and done with a teleprompter if possible.  How he made it through the two debates?  I have the faintest idea (had to be knowing the questions, and tons of practice time to recite the statement over and over).

Who really runs the telepromters?  I'm guessing Jill is there 75-percent of the time, and two or three trusted insiders the rest.  

But there's another thing that Elon did, which is interesting.  He told Twitter (blunt statement)....they have to rid the company of fake account/bots for the deal to go through.  Then he tweeted....he thinks 20-percent of Twitter accounts are fake (way more than what the company says.....at 5-percent).

I've read different account (various experts talking over this).  Based on their chatter....I'd say 10-percent is the minimum.

Here's the issue....if you dig up the 10-percent, and ask who they follow.....it might lead to a bunch of Democratic leaders and news sources (CNN, MSNBC, WaPo), and if suddenly you deleted that 10-percent.....the followers of CNN might slide off by 80,000.  Same story for President Biden.

Is the stock price offered ($54.20) still reasonable?  I personally would suggest a $10 cut if you find it's 15-to-20 percent of fake accounts.  

Are the fake accounts even just US?  No....you can't make that statement.  Maybe Putin's followers are one-third fake.

I'm fairly attached to Elon's thinking.  If I had to pick someone that I wanted to 'manage' the US (call it a CEO of America), then he's the guy I'd pick.  

Finland

 In case you were wondering how big Finland is....you can have two comparisons:

- It's as big as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium combined.

- It's as big as North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia combined. 

Ten Things That Regular People Can't Grasp

 1.  All this yacking about paying you fair share of taxes....goes in a spiral.  Who wrote the current tax code?  Senators and House members.  When a company makes 500-million in profit, and only pays 1-million in taxes?  Well....the code has hundreds of thousands of credits.....you build your company to the code, and you take revenue out of the government's hand.  

So when Presidents hypes up 'fair share'.....he's one of the reasons why they 'can't pay' their fair share.

2.  Dropboxes for absentee voting....make no sense, unless you had a clerk there to stamp it official going into the box, and a guard to ensure only one single drop per  person.

3.  There is no law to say you must use correct English, bully-pronouns, or even be able speak any English.  Nothing in the Constitution deals with language, or forcing you to comply with pronoun games.  I should also note, nothing in the Constitution says you can't cuss.....use the four-letter words, or forbid 'slut' from being used.

4.  If you work for a business.....your only focus for the business is to make the product/service successful.  If you can't focus on that....you need to find other work or learn to hunt rabbits/deer.  

5.  Marginally intelligent people deserve a chance to be generals, Congressmen, Senators, and President.  Then after you had one or two people prove their marginal intelligence......you can forget about this idea, and find busy-work for these folks. 

6.  When you stand in front of teachers and educational people....getting cut off from reading the material that your kid brought home from school....for being too sexual....what does that really indicate?  

7.  Raising taxes....on anyone.....doesn't have a positive relationship to inflation.  In fact, if anything.....it pushes inflation a notch or two higher.

8.  Within 90 days, because of lessening food shuffles going on....the US is going to be called upon to save Afghanistan from mass starvation.  Wanna take a guess how it's to be handled?  Same goofball who planned the exit strategy to run this strategy? 

9.  Elon says that printing money inflates inflation.  Generally, if you don't print money....tighten your budget requirements a little bit, and grumble for about a year....your mess goes away.  Once you print money, that one year goes to 18 to 24 months of a recession.

10.  If you start having fear over going to school, church, grocery-shopping, or sitting on a park bench....what does that say about your community?