Book Review: The English Tradesman (1726)

By Daniel DeFoe

Well....it's a curious book.  DeFoe is supposed to have only written one great book in his life....the rest are just pushed aside.  I've been picking up several of the other books and now come to disagree....most all of them...are good reads.

I should note....this book (published in 1726) was updated a hundred years later (1839) with some better footnotes and fresher material (long after DeFoe died).

The English Tradesman is a book which DeFoe goes to educate the English on craftsman skills.  Yes, it's the first book written over business and how to be a complete tradesman or businessman in the world.

Chapter by chapter....he lays out the various skills that you require.  From writing in a concise way....to being pleasant but firm in your attitude.  Stories of a personal nature are thrown into the mix, and make for better reading material.

If you were taking a college business section.....needing to write a report on skills of the tradesman in the 1700s...compared to today, this would make an excellent platform to base the paper upon.  In essence....nothing much has changed in 300 years.  Craftsman today....need basically the same skills as they needed in the old days.

Simplified book....easily read over a weekend.  Not complex.....and certainly written in a easy format.  I'd recommend it for the 16-to-20 year old crowd....in the midst of a high school project or college course on business.

Simply Observations

Yesterday, about an hour after the Malaysian flight was shot down over the Ukraine....I flipped my TV over to RT (Russia Today).....Russian news....minute-by-minute....in English.  They had their two guys covering this and giving a pretty accurate picture of what is seen at the site.....lots of images sent from Russians down in the region.  So there's folks calling in and giving eye-witness commentary.  In fact....these two guys in a row.  So these two Russian bystanders.....eyewitnesses....giving a vivid image of what's going on and the wreckage.....all being translated from Russian into English.  Strangely enough....both get to some point about a minute into their commentary.....that the local Russian militia (the freedom fighters going against Ukraine)....don't have the missiles to reach this height.  It was rather odd.....two bystanders....saying virtually the same thing....almost word for word as the translator did the comments.  Yes, rather odd.  In fact, to the point that I'd think this was all thrown into the media mix to convince people of something.....when it's possibly not true.  RT might be an innocent bystander in reporting what comes in.....but you get this odd feeling that some folks in Russian-Ukraine did something rather stupid and need to cover it up.  As for Putin's reaction?  I'm guessing that his chief down in Ukraine is visiting these idiots who fired the missile today, and suggesting they need to clear out and get as far from the civilized world as possible.

From over in Israel, if you really dig deep into the news (not the standard ABC, CBS, NBC stuff).....you will note that the Israeli military asked the UN to allow them to inspect a UN school site in Gaze (controlled by the Palestinians).  It's written into the rules that the UN must allow inspections.  Oddly enough.....there in a storage room....missiles.  Now, in the real world.....there's just not much of a reason for a school to house missiles.  So the UN is terribly dismayed by this episode, and promising to explain this later.  As for ethical consequences here?  Why would you not target schools and hospitals....if you kinda figure out they've got missiles hidden there?  What idiot would put missiles into schools and hospitals?  Just makes you wonder.

Some statistical guys came out and basically said there are approximately 1.6 percent of American society which is gay.....with another .6 percent saying they were bi-sexual, and one percent just saying they weren't gay, bi-sexual or straight.....leaving you to wonder what the heck they were (my suggestion is bondage, or an alien species).  The study....from the government naturally....says very strongly that there is no health difference between the groups, but then oddly enough admits that a fairly high number of gays are binge drinkers, and suffer from various psychological ailments.  Oddly enough....straight women were more likely to say they were really healthy....when compared to lesbians who noted various ailments.   What's the bottom line to the survey?  Well....out of 300-million Americans, there are probably 4.2 million gays.  The survey didn't know the state-status or urban versus rural part  of the story....maybe for a good reason.  If you knew more straights lived in Arkansas than any other state....it might disturb you, or if you knew that twenty-percent of California is gay, with the rest of the nation near .02 percent....it might disturb you.  As for the "other-minded" folks (neither straight, gay, or bi)?  Well....three million stretched across America....doing something, but we aren't sure of what.

Finally, Edward Snowden (our NSA guy) gave a brief interview of sorts....commenting on a number of things.  One of them.....that he's firmly convinced that IF he'd just be allowed a jury-trial rather than a judge-trial.....he'd get an innocent type situation, and his "peers" would see the truth.  Maybe if this was Hawaii or California.....in an OJ-like setting, he might be right.  In the other forty-eight states?  I'm fairly convinced that the charges laid out....would be noted on a guilty situation for Snowden.  He kinda noted at the end.....negotiations with the State Department are kinda stalled on this idea of him returning to conditions that he prefers.  My humble guess is that he'll live out his life in Russia, unless the Germans rig up some bogus deal to bring him into Germany.  Otherwise, he'll never touch US soil ever again.

Tranquility in the Real World

"We live in a complex world, and at a challenging time."
  -- President Obama, 17 Jul 2014

After eight years of the Bush administration.....most folks (to include a fair number of independents and Republicans) would readily admit in 2008....they were hoping for some kind of change.  US relations around the globe were stalled.  Things were getting stagnant.  Banks were hyper about US policy.  The US economy wasn't going much of anywhere.  And what people were mostly looking for a logical guy who would ask questions, get assessments, and take the steering wheel for a while to readjust things.

In essence, we are still waiting.

The PR guy for the administration came out a few days ago and used the expression that the President had "brought tranquility to the globe".  Which someone within the White House Press area asked if that area of the globe was Iceland?

After hearing the comment, and having been through Iceland on numerous occasions (more than eight, but I've never ventured outside of the airport).....I can attest to one single thing that I've noticed about Icelandic folks at the airport.....they tend to be focused, professional and courteous.

In general, there are roughly two murders on average a year in Iceland.  It's not exactly a hotbed of oppression, greed, frustration, or hostility. There were 394 assaults reported in 2011.  Although, to be honest....if you could weasel out the drunk and druggies on the 394 number......you'd probably get closer to the 275-number.

Back in late December of 2013.....less than eight months ago....the Icelandic news folks reported the first police situation since 1944 where a cop had to shoot a guy.  Yeah....I know....pretty amazing.  The cops tried to calm the guy a bit....but he had a history of mental disease (oh yeah, they have that as much as we do), and after the guy fired.....the cops fired just enough to drop the guy.

Why is Iceland so tranquil?  Well.....this is a bit difficult to believe.....but because of taxation and income levels.....the upper class of Iceland is noted to involve only 1.1 percent of society.  The lower class of society?  1.5 percent.  So the MIDDLE CLASS is made up of 97.5 percent of society....hence, the reason why everyone is so happy, and TRANQUIL.

So you sit and think about this.

There's not much to get frustrated over.  No one can really afford to drive a high-end BMW....so they all drive average cars.

There's not much to envy.  No one can really afford to go off to Aruba for a week of hard partying, or Hawaii for two weeks of fun in the sun, or spend $7,000 on a weekend trip to Vegas.

There's not much to get hostile about.  Your cousin is making the same money as you.  Your wife is making about as much as you.  Your postal carrier is making as much as you.  Your barber makes as much as you.  So you just kinda tip your one beer tonight (that's mostly all you can afford in Iceland) and nod at the bartender that it'll be a long one-beer night for you.....sipping very slowly.

 There's not much to get disheartened about at a class reunion.  Everyone got to the same point in life as you....even after thirty years.

There's not much to feel defeated about.....the neighbor is about as screwed as you are on promotions.  Your doctor might note your blood pressure is awful low, but that's ok.

Complex world stuff?  Well....it's hard to say if the President knows much about complex stuff.  You don't run into many complex problems as a Illinois legislature guy, a part-time professor, or community organizer.  Stuff from Harvard, Columbia or Occidental that fits into this issue of a complex world?  I doubt if any professor from the three schools ever taught a class that hinted of complex situations in the world.

Complex stuff in Iceland....the tranquil land of snow and ice?  I'm imagining the toughest thing that might turn a Icelandic guy upside down and get him all frustrated.....is a 300-piece Lego set.  Yeah.....in an entire year......there's just not much to get the feeling of complexity into your thinking in Iceland.

In the US....because of all the various issues, problems and chaos that exists.....we tend to vote guys into the position of President....so they can do....what we can't.  And if they grasp at some point that things are fairly complex and beyond them....then ask for help or get the right people around you.  And if you just won't take such action?  Well....it might be time to get a park ranger job, or start looking for another professor's position.

The American Ditch in Decline

I noted yesterday that the topic of EPA expansion on regulating took another step or two.  Apparently, there's some effort for the EPA to have regulating ability over washes (as you have in Arizona), roadside ditches, and drainage ditches.  We aren't talking on federal property....it's meant for all of the US, period.

So you'd sit there....as a typical Bama guy would....trying to imagine some department in the EPA....governing ditches in Bama.  The commissioner of ditches?  Yeah, it'd be a paid job, with a hottie secretary, forty scientists studying ditches, and probably a thousand administrative guys properly monitoring ditches throughout America.

You'd go once a year to Tallahasse, Florida to attend the ditch-association meeting.....charming environmentalists on ditch knowledge and regulation.  There would be ditch lobbyists there to hand out golf carts, special gifts, and fancy swanky evenings with hired lobbyist-hookers.

The scientists in charge of reviewing ditches in America?  Well....they'd come from upscale university programs at Harvard, Yale, and UCLA.  Naturally.....they'd admit they'd never really seen a real ditch in their life, or pulled a truck out from one, or seen a bunch of copperhead snakes in a typical southern Alabama ditch.

The dry wash commissioner?  Well....there's not much to say or do....for ten months out of the year.  Usually in July and August....dry washes become a hot activity, with monsoon storms arriving and flooding areas with the dry washes.  So you'd have plenty of time to talk politics in DC, swap bar-b-q recipes, talk with trampy Baltimore women, and sip straight rum in the afternoons at the office while watching baseball games.

Fifty years ago....if you had suggested that some government agency would eventually want to take over your ditch business in rural America....folks would have laughed you out of the room.  Today?  It's not a joke.

There are four million miles of roads in America...more or less.  So you can figure at least five to eight million miles of ditches in America.  You'd have to hire a bunch of college kids and do a large database.....to show various grades of ditches.  Yeah, it's a full-time job for some unemployed college kids....just to count ditches.

Permission to place a ditch, or perhaps do maintenance on a ditch? Coming from Washington DC?  Is that really necessary?

You can imagine some type of accreditation coming out of this....meaning you have to be an official ditch-digger, with some type of degree or background.....to even dig a ditch.  Just showing up with a shovel and pick....won't cut it.  You'd have to be special....to dig a ditch.

Only in America.

Day of Reckoning for the IRS Chief

The judge handling the IRS episode over the Tea Party stuff....gave an odd directive to the head of the IRS last week.  He wants the head guy to come back next week, and give testimony.....under oath.  The media has barely covered this order, and no one really says much over it.  Having worked around the US government.....I can state that this oath business probably changes a ton of things over a short period of time.

What will happen here?  As the order was given for testimony under oath.....the head guy starts to sweat a bit.  Number one....rarely do any of these people hired for such a lofty position....have any understanding of IT work or situations.  They hire people to handle IT requirements.  So, just asking one stupid and routine question....means a answer under oath, and the head guy probably can't do an adequate job.

Number two.....once he realizes the impact of the order...the head guy goes back to the division and orders a big meeting with all the players, and the lawyers of the agency.  The lawyers want the players, and people with info.....to now provide written and signed statements to the head guy.  These statements need to reflect the "truth" but also blend into the statements of their associates.

Number three....as you can imagine....these lesser figures now start to sweat because no one ever made them write statements and sign them before.  So, that night....they call their lawyer (the $150 an hour local guy).  He admits that he's not up on this kind of stuff, but knows a DC lawyer who is (the $300 an hour DC guy).  This DC lawyer gives a two hour phone chat to this guy and his local lawyer.  The key thing?  Don't sign nothing unless you feel comfortable, and it's the truth.

Number four....as the hours pass and the deadline to come back into court starts to get close....the head guy now finds several folks willing to only state a couple of facts and limit their knowledge admitted.  The head guy tries to comfort his folks.....they are protected by the lawyers of the agency.  No one believes this now.

Number five....over the twenty-four hours before the next judge-to-IRS chief-meeting, there's high tension at the agency.  Some folks are thinking of leaving the agency as soon as possible.  Some folks have given up doing real work and worried about protecting themselves.  The agency lawyers are pulling eighteen hour days....but can only charge eight to ten hours on their time-card.  There's some feelings about a US marshall team possibly arriving and conducting a search of their records.  So the lawyers are likely cleaning their files as time goes by....to ensure they don't have conflicting evidence or emails in their possession.

My humble guess is that the IRS chief will ask for a delay of ten days once we get to X-day.  The judge will have a choice of cooperating or demanding they show up.  Hard to say what happens in this case.

If you could find a network covering this and giving minute-by-minute coverage....it'd be kinda interesting to watch.  My guess is that no network will cover it, period.  Maybe a one-minute update at the end of the day....but nothing much else.

The Question of Scandal

For a number of weeks, I've been trying to grasp and understand how the news media grades and invokes "scandal".  Some networks and news organization say X is scandal but Y is not scandal.

If you grow up in Bama....you generally know scandal.  There's roughly ten versions.

1.  The local Baptist minister is caught with three choir ladies....which none of them knew that the other two were involved.

2.  The local water department clerk is finally audited after fifteen years of employment, and is noted to having stolen over $100,000 through the years.  All of the money is gone....primarily due to her gambling habit at the casino over in Mississippi..

3.  The local mayor and city council are discovered to have hired up relatives for various town maintenance jobs....of which none of them ever work more than twenty hours of week for a full-up pay-check.

4.  A city council pair of dimwits rig up a property swap, where some guy gets a $150,000-valued piece of land in exchange for a $10,000-valued piece of land that the city owns.

5.  The local high school agriculture instructor is caught buying state property at some state auction, in the name of the school and then turns around to sell the former state property at the normal price....walking away with $5k in profits in his pocket.

6.  Two deacons from the local church use church funds to travel off to a deacons conference in Plano, Texas.....but later are discovered to have stayed at some fancy resort in Dallas, and pay for strippers with the church credit card.

7. The local doctor is arrested and charged with Medicare fraud for asking for blood tests for every single patient they see.  The extra profits made from this gimmick?  They pay for a Bahamas property they bought and intend to retire to within ten years.

8.  The local bank loan officer is discovered signing loan papers for her lover....over and over and over.

9.  The minister's wife runs off to Oklahoma City with a local farm implement salesman.

10.  The police chief from town is found undressed in his squad car with two Memphis transexual lady-guys who just happened to stop in the middle of Alabama on a warm July evening.

The thing is....most folks know what is scandal and what is not.  A news reporter can pretend he knows better....but it just doesn't work well.  People tend to ask stupid questions....why this happened, where the trail of money went, and how someone fell from the lofty position they held.

Sometimes, you feel sorry for the scandal folks.  You'd like to help them somehow.....maybe send up a prayer, or just look the other way on something.  You'd like for the scandal to just go away, or get fixed by some judge in a hurry.

The fact is.....we pretty much know scandals so well.....because we've seen them so often.  A typical Bama guy will swore that he sees an average of one scandal every ten days.  Sometimes with his neighbor....sometimes with a church member....sometimes with a relative....sometimes with a former school buddy....sometimes even with a hunting partner.  It's life, in a difficult way.  And it's not exactly pretty.

Entertaining?  Well....yeah.  It does beat talking up weather, GM brake pads, bad mowers we've bought at Wal-Mart, loose women we know from the flea market, and swanky gals who shop along side of us at Piggly Wiggly.

The truth is....we enjoy scandal, and probably rank it higher than NCAA football.  Well....up until the bowl games anyway.

Weed Nation

We are about to have state number two on the "marijuana-is-approved" list come into reality (Colorado was the first, and Washington state is now the second state).

Some folks with 247 Wall Street sat down and did the analysis on the next group to enter this stage.
The list?  Alaska (the vote comes in November and will likely pass), California (likely within two years), Maryland (they will virtually decriminalize it to the extent that it's more serious if you jay-walked than it is buying weed), Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon (likely by the election of 2016), Rhode Island, and Vermont.

What does the trend indicate? No southern states within the foreseeable future.  Also, shockingly enough....Michigan wasn't on the next list....while the residents of Detroit would easily vote up such a measure with a twenty-point margin (my humble bet).

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, I noted that marijuana farmers out of South America have virtually stopped their production cycle....with no one really interested in buying it or transporting into the US.  Mostly because there's already plenty of legal marijuana already on the market, and tons more coming from US farming operations.

The DEA guys?  They seem to have basically given up on crimes and the legal system surrounding marijuana.

What's left?  Taxation on sales of marijuana.  On this topic.....someone has to be standing there and calculating the actual sales going on in Colorado, and knows the daily revenue numbers.  ABC reported just in the past few days of the first accurate study of sales over the weed....which they figure around 130 metric tons of weed were sold in the past year.  Roughly ninety percent went to state residents and the rest for "guests".

The market value currently reflects around $220 an ounce for weed.  You can do the math....but it'd come out just over a billion dollars a year for state sales....if the $220 number is accurate (I'd question this myself and think the number is lower).

If you attach a taxation deal to the sales.....and you border Colorado....then you have to wonder about what sales taxation you are missing....if your "buyers" walk over the border to buy their stuff.  In the end.....if you figure you lost $200 million on possible taxes....you'd get pretty upset, and start to campaign on getting it approved in your state.

The guys conducting this survey.....kinda limited themselves.  They left out a number of questions....either because of time, man-power, or just limits.  For example....for these 'guests' of the state....where are they coming from?  Texas?  Utah?  And the age grouping of the buyers?  And were they continual repeat buyers?

Whether we like it or not....weed is now a business, and a revenue machine.  It'll eventually turn into a taxation device.  And we will have to accept the fact that more people smoke weed, than those who don't.