The Thing About Incompetent People

 I was reading a piece today, and suddenly....someone made the statement....is there some surge of incompetency that has erupted today and spans from the government to the commercial world.

Probably since 2008....I've generally felt that way.

I won't say the vast number of people I come across are incompetent....but in general...walking around either in Europe, or in the US....I have this gut feeling that a quarter of the folks that I need something transaction or work out out of....are lacking.

Often, I've sat and thought....are they smoking some weed?  Are they sipping a bit of whiskey?  Are they just a lower IQ person?  

I'll be at a airport check-in, and feel this way.

I'll be at a gas station, and feel this way.

I'll try to deal with some banking person, and feel this way.

I'll be on the phone with a customer service person, and feel this way.

I brought this up while working at the Pentagon, and someone responded that they had to interview around a dozen people for a job (wasn't a job with responsibility or requiring college).  At the end, at least half of the dozen were disqualified because they either seemed low-IQ or seemed 'out-of-focus' (like they were on medication).  

It'd be interesting if this was observed in the 1960s/1970s by people as well....like it's not a new thing....just a normal thing about people.

Am I bothered by it?  I try to overlook their problems and just exit as quickly as possible.

Ten Observations

 1.  The thing about all this lab leak/Covid chatter.....there's not a single day in America, where some industry mechanism screws up and a 'mess' is created which requires a 'clean-up'.  In China?  There's probably forty-odd screw-ups each day.  So this whole Covid non-leak business is more or less a joke.

2.  Whether you like it or not....there's two divisions of banks in America....the ones you will save without thinking, or the ones you allow to dissolve....never regretting your bold non-action.

3.  Bitch-slaping someone....probably ought to be a 3rd degree misdemeanor....meaning you pay $5 for the act.  

4.  If you've never read up on the 'Winter War' where Finland accomplished a 'Ukraine-like' halt to the Soviet Army.....you might want to go spend 30 minutes reading up on the episode.  I don't think Putin ever read over that part of Soviet history.

5.  Whether bright or not....this May....Ukraine will get a listing of where they stand on joining the EU.  It'll just irk Putin and the Kremlin twice over.

6.  Someone started a trend where Trans-women are referred to as 'women-plus'.  Not sure how they mean the plus.

7.  And just like that....the Silicon Valley Bank sold for exactly 1 Brit Pound to HSBC.  It would have been worth several billion a month ago.

8.    One interesting factor about HSCB's landscape (owning SVB now).....they hate crypto, with a passion.

9.  We talk more about 'failures' today....than successes.  Isn't that odd?

10.  The day will come where you (as a guy) will know more Women-plus or Trans-women....than actual real women.  

Just Something To Remember About Conclusions

 As Yorg and Gorg left the valley as cavemen....there has been this understanding in our verbal language....that when you state a conclusion....there can only be three things to come up.

First, you can reflect upon things and offer up some reasonable end-statement....which sums up the discussion or argument.  It can be just a one-liner, or a full page.

Second, you can offer judgement....which means a critical thought process and perhaps some unkind words to your 'friend' or now to be 'former-friend'.

Third and final....you can state a call-to-action....meaning you want people disturbed or hyped-up.  I'll just say that a quarter of the time, you haven't really thought this action out, and it might be a tricky ending....dissolving into chaos or revolution (especially if you were in France).

Are conclusions to be avoided?  Well....how?  Once you open up a discussion or argument....things have to be summed up in the end.

Are conclusions something that ought to be stressed in high school?  I'd go out and suggest that by the time some 18-year old kid has finished school....he should have spent a good twenty hours in some conclusion training and be able to analyze things to some marginal degree.

All of this being Greek philosophy in some hidden way?  Well....yeah, but lets not bring up this fact. 

The Problem With Misremembering

 It's not a phrase that I would have used 20 years ago.  The first time I probably used it?  Maybe around 2012/2013, and since then....at least in my mind....I probably bring it up three times a week.

Something will occur and suddenly....I'm thinking this story I'm being told by journalists....seems fraudulent.  So I'll go back....sometimes to review history from the 1800s or 1900s.  Then I find myself in a situation where the news piece told....is maybe only half-true.

It's like talking about the 1927 New York Yankees, and then realizing....pound for pound....they were the greatest baseball team of all time.

Or it's like you hear some story over Florida and it's laws....going back to remember what was passed, then realizing some idiot tried to hand you a dose of propaganda.

Or it's like trying to assemble the 1929 stock market crash....realizing that half the story is always left out of the BS you are told.

Misremembering becoming a daily task?  That's the part to worry me.  At some point, some idiot will suggest that Jesus had a brother named Marvin, and I'll have to skim through forty pages of the Bible to reach the conclusion there never never was a Marvin mentioned.  

Landscape View of Bank Chatter

Just for reference....back on 11 March 2021....the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was wrapped up and signed by President Biden.

If you remember the 'talk'....this was geared to be a COVID-19 economic and stimulus package....worth about $1.9 trillion.  

So what happened over the past two years?  Basically....inflation took off.  Partly because of the 2021 act, and partly because the actions of the Biden team to prevent inflation....failed.  

What the fed did in the past year?  They basically went to raise interest rates, which shocked a lot of people because the value of bonds 'changed'.  Banks didn't see this value spiraling, and thus....you created a path of uncertainly for banks and clients.  

Here you stand....on this Monday, with a bank meltdown....mostly waiting to see is a second, third, fourth, and fifth bank join in the meltdown.  

All of this....to avoid the dreaded invention of inflation that the Biden 'camp' can't really talk about or address in public.

It is kinda funny.

Remember....all of this came from three years of Covid.  

Also....going back to 1917....the 'Spanish Flu'.....Prohibition....fabulous twenties....NY banks tied to massive bank loans to Germany to settle WW I debt to France, UK and US, economic blast-offs/drops every few months, and then reacting to the 1929 bank failures.  Yeah, this is a lot of history we don't discuss today.