Manny Festo - Why Fascism Is Popular Worldwide

Manifestos are the best kind of Festos, just as Tabernacles are the best kind of Nacles.

Everyone has a manifesto these days - so that when they die in a hail of gunfire, we can all read them on Twitter and shake our heads at the craziness.  Peter Thiel is a formerly closeted homosexual and German-American.  I've always said that Gay men make the best Nazis - what with the snappy uniforms and leather and whatnot, and closeted Gay men are as dangerous as cornered animals.   Throw in German heritage and what's not to like?

Thiel,  or more precisely, his co-founder Alex Karp, recently published on Twitter a 22-point Manifesto which appears to argue that the United States should be turned into a Technocratic Fascist State, with Silicon Valley Tech Bros put in charge.  Many are finding this ironic, as the whole Personal Computer revolution was thought, at first, to liberate us plebes from the tyranny of "Big Blue" IBM and mainframe computers (yes, I go that far back).

Once the PC took off, Google was going to save us from big, bad old Microsoft, by pledging "Don't Be Evil!" and allowing us to search the Internet as a database of facts.  In this brave new world of free data flow, it was thought that truth would reign supreme and that conspiracy theories and urban legends would slowly fade away - washed away by a fire hose of facts and truths.

But as we saw, the opposite was the case.  More people believe in "flat earth" theories and other conspiracies than any time in the past.  Superstition is more popular than ever and even a brief search online shows this to be true.  Did you know you can get rich gambling online?  Everyone else is doing it - why not you?

Some people see this trend as a betrayal of the founding principles of Silicon Valley.  Instead of making us free, technology has enslaved us, at first to the PC, then the smart phone, the latter of which we all stare at for hours every day, hoping to find something of interest.  Meanwhile, books sit dusty on the shelves and no one can sit through an entire movie any longer, even as they routinely go over two hours in length.  But I digress.

I see a pattern, though, not a betrayal.  Every entrepreneur and inventor espouses noble ideas when they pitch their new device, program, app, or business model.  Advertisements on your gas pump display will help consumers make better purchasing choices!  Yea, right.  What I think happens is that people make obscene amounts of money when they get lucky in tech, and once they have a big enough pile, they can't fail, even if they throw half of it at money-losing propositions.

And once you have that kind of money, well, you get tired of paying taxes.  You also realize you don't have to, as it is cheaper to buy off politicians than to pay taxes.  So the rich man thinks he "earned" his wealth - I have even heard heirs claim this! - and scolds the poor for being parasites of society, even as the tech bros lobby for yet another tax break, subsidy, or even government bailout.

It is a predictable as Hurricanes in Florida.

But another aspect is at work here.  I noted before that migration is not merely an issue in the US, but worldwide.  Migrants are fleeing war-torn countries and ravaged economies for a better life elsewhere.  It is how my ancestors migrated here from Ireland, Scotland, England, France, and Switzerland.  But that's different because, reasons.  Well, actually not. The anti-Irish sentiment in the 1800s was as strong in America as the anti-Somalian sentiment espoused by the GOP today.  Every minority gets their turn in the hot seat, it seems - the Jews, Italians, Chinese, and yes, even Germans, particularly during World War I, when Pennsylvanian Germans re-imagined themselves as "Pennsylvania Dutch."

The corollary to this situation is the perception that Democratic institutions are weak or vacillating and can't accomplish anything.  We need a strong man to "get things done!" and make the trains run on time.  And that is the problem with Democracy - when you give everyone a say in how things are done, nothing gets done.

Mark has been working like a dog for a few years now, as part of a committee to relocate our pottery guild (and classroom space for the Arts Association) to part of the old firehouse here on the island.  The guild was in the basement of historic Goodyear Cottage. Only Yankees are dumb enough to dig eight-foot deep basements on a property barely 10 feet above the high tide mark.  Whenever it rains, it floods, and when it storms, well, thousands of dollars of expensive kilns and pottery wheels are ruined.  Water + Electricity = Bad.

So after years of debate, searching, finding, and negotiating, the transition is finally happening.  A quarter-million dollars has been raised, and the build-out of the space has begun.  Despite years of committee meetings, as well as general meetings and publication of plans and requests for feedback, it seems that only now, once construction has begun, that some folks (who were against the whole project from the get-go) voice their opinions on trivial matters.

Can't we move that window over six inches?  Why not move that load-bearing wall?  No one ever asked for my input! (they did, again and again) so I will throw a wrench in the works at the very last minute!

Democracy sucks, it seems.

Of course, sometimes this is by design.  During the Wiemar Republic, the Democratic government was seen as weak and vacillating.  The economy was in the toilet and Communists and Fascists were rioting in the street.  Yet the government seemed incapable of maintaining control.  Since there was no clear majority in the government, any solutions could be readily derailed, often by the very same people causing the problems.  The Communists and Nazis didn't want street-brawling stopped - they saw a value in it, as each hoped that disorder would bring down the government and usher their side into power.

And we know how that worked out.

I noted before how some radicals want to see society destroyed, on the premise that when everything goes to hell, people will demand a fascist dictator or a Communist revolution to fix things.  Sadly, this sort of thinking is flawed, in that, when things do go to hell, there is no guarantee that "your side" will be the new power.  Granted, in the USA, when conditions become dire, people vote to change parties.  But such is not always the case, worldwide, and often people vote for yet more misery, convinced that the party in power hasn't gone far enough or hasn't been given enough time to make its wacky theories work.

It is not that Democracy doesn't work, only that bad faith actors intentionally stymie it.  Recall that George Bush tried to push through Immigration Reform legislation, only to have it nixed by his own party.  They don't want to solve festering issues, they want to keep them simmering on the back burner so they can run, again and again, on those issues.  When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans were stuck, like the dog who actually catches the car they were chasing.  Now what?  Can't run on outlawing Abortion when you've already won on that issue.

The problem doesn't lie with governments, but with the people.  People who keep voting for easy answers to complex problems - which are always the wrong answers.  Sometimes, people eventually wise up - often after decades of abuse - and overthrow fascists.  We saw this in Hungary recently, where state-run propaganda kept Viktor Orban in power far longer than one would have thought, given how he ruined that nation's economy.

Today, we see the same thing happening in the US.  Major news organizations are being bought up by right-wing Oligarchs.  The Washington, Post, CNN, even the New York Times, have all moved or lurched to the far-right.  One can no longer trust the media to be impartial, and the cry of the "liberal media" by the far-right seems almost farcical these days.

Maybe people will figure this out in time, or perhaps it will all fall apart as some extremists hope.  Sadly, if the latter occurs, I don't think it will user in an paradise era of Democratic Socialism, but instead, something far worse.

The 22-Point Palintir Manifesto.  It reads more like a personal grievance list, particularly item #18.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Windows 7 v. Windows 10 v. Windows 11 v. Chromebook

I had a chance to compare four operating systems side by side.  The result was unexpected.

A friend of  mine was gifted a new HP laptop and asked me to "set it up" and transfer all of his data from his old Window 10 laptop (also HP) to the new machine.  I was reluctant to do this, because, like working on someone else's car, if you screw it all up, you are the villain, but if you do it right, you are no hero ("Oh, anyone could have done that!").  Needless to say, my declining mental faculties make the whole project more dreadful - as in making me full of dread.

Nevertheless, he insisted, and I set up four computers - my trusty but slow Windows 7 Ultimate Toshiba laptop (one of four or so I own, now), my Chromebook, his old HP laptop running Windows 10, and the new-in-the-box HP laptop running Windows 11.  I put these on our dining room table, all plugged into a plug strip.  The table is a very old thing, taken from the library in a mansion in Westchester County that Mark's parents briefly owned and ran as a retirement home, shortly after the war, when such white elephants could be bought on the cheap.  It is over 12 feet long and apparently was four feet longer, but was cut down by Mark's Dad when they sold the estate.  It is over 200 years old and sturdy as a tank - the kind of furniture I favor - if it can't support the weight of a car, I'm not interested.

But I digress.

The initial frustration was trying to translate actions from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and 11.  Microsoft changes things for the sake of changing things, or for nefarious reasons.  The general trend over the years is to insulate the user from the workings of the machine.  So instead of showing you the architecture of the computer - the drives, the peripherals, etc. - it merely steers you to do things that make Microsoft money.

For example, it was frustrating enough that Windows 7 has "public" and "private" libraries, so you never know where a particular file is stored (chances are, it is in "downloads" anyway).   Windows 11 defaults to the "cloud" which is Microsoft's "Onedrive"  feature.  It has just enough storage space to be somewhat useful, but once you start using the computer, it quickly fills up.  Conveniently (for Microsoft) they offer to "upgrade" your storage for a monthly fee (the first of many as we shall see) and I suspect most users just agree to this as they have no idea the data is even going to the cloud.

Onedrive was useful in that I could copy files to it from the old Windows 10 machine, wait for them to upload (slow on our phone-based network) and then download them to the new Windows 11 machine.  Most networks are asymmetrical in that the upload speed is 1/10th of the download speed, as most users are downloading far more than uploading.  Your typical "upload" is a click on a YouTube video and the download is firehose of video data.   So even with a "fast" network, it would take a long time to upload the data to Onedrive.

What sort of data?  He had few documents, but lots of photos, starting in the 2000's and ending suddenly in 2017 - the year he got his first iPhone.  Back in the day, we had digital cameras and took pictures and videos and then uploaded them to our computers. The smart phone put an end to all that - all our photos are on the phone now.  Funny how that happened.

Anyway, while that data was uploading, I got out an old stack of 100 CD-ROMs (R and RW) that I bought at a garage sale for ten cents a few years back and transferred the photos in blocks to a total of 22 CDs, so he would have an archive of sorts.  I suspect he will never look at any of it, but if I erased even one file, by accident, no doubt it would be the one file he wanted.  You can't win at this game.

Yes, I tried the backup and restore function and indeed, Windows 11 even prompted me for this - but then said the backup was corrupted.  I also tried to "network" the computers together, and while the Windows 10 machine seemed eager to talk to my Windows 7, the Windows 11 machine copped some sort of attitude toward its lesser brethren and refused to connect, noting pointedly that Windows 10 and earlier are "no longer supported."

Microsoft networking has always been clunky - or at least modern versions of it.  I remember I was able to network my PCs in my office with ease back in the 1990s.   We could create "network drives" and share data on the Z:\ drive across every PC in the office.  Newer versions of Microsoft networking were almost paranoid in the level of security and it seemed if you even breathed on the computer it would disconnect from the network and never connect again. The arcane system of addresses and passwords worked - sometimes.  Other times, you could "see" another computer on the network, but never connect to that machine, no matter how many times you enabled sharing on that machine and entered password or whatever.  In the end, I just gave up - life is too short to troubleshoot Microsoft crap.

While the files were being transferred, I checked out his e-mail setup.  There were over 3,000 e-mails in his inbox, most unread.  And while I was in Outlook (Outhouse?) several dozen more popped up, including outright ads.   No wonder he never responds to my e-mails!  Now I understand the meaning of the transmission, "We have two copies of Outlook and neither are working" from Artemis II.  It scares me that NASA uses Microsoft products for man-rated mission-critical software.  Imagine a Windows 11 forced update in the middle of the landing sequence, or a pitch for "Outlook Pro" or whatever at a critical moment - forcing astronauts to fumble for credit cards in zero-G in order to avoid catastrophe.

The Outlook thing was jarring, as I use Chrome and g-mail with adblock plus, and I pay no monthly fee and see no ads and get little SPAM.  I keep only a dozen or so e-mails in my inbox at a time, deleting those that are unnecessary, marking SPAM (on rare occasion) or filing important things away in folders.  Outlook, on the other hand, was so SPAMmed and commercial that it was unusable - it reminded me of how "newsgroups" in the old days of ASCII-text internet were SPAMmed into oblivion almost overnight.

I was going to suggest he go a similar route, but having to change e-mail addresses and all - and learn a new program - isn't easy for the older set.  Instead, I loaded Chrome onto his new laptop, added adblock plus, and then ran Outlook as a website (rather than an "app" - more on that later) and like magic, the ads disappeared.

I also checked his subscriptions and found nearly 200 subscriptions to e-mails, mostly for retailers and such.  Some were quite sketchy.  I unsubscribed from all of them, and I don't think he'll miss the daily sales pitches from Joseph Banks (they are still in business?) or from mortgage refinancing places (he has no mortgage).  The mass data flow of 2-3 e-mails every few minutes dropped off.  A few of the sketchy ones peeked through, but I went through and reported them as SPAM and blocked them (and later showed him how to do this).  In two days, not a single e-mail (that was not legit) came through.

But again, the smart phone.  Like I said, he stopped answering e-mails because of this debacle, but switched to texting instead - as did a lot of folks.  Just as we put away out digital cameras and went to the phone, the laptop and the "personal computer" seems doomed for extinction, other than for people who need it for their jobs or maybe gaming.  I suspect a lot of folks are going to go computer-free in the next few years (or go to a netbook, more on that later).

Anyway, I also set up Apache Open Office, which he had on his old machine.  Yes, Windows 11 comes with Microsoft WORD, but you have to subscribe to it, in order to use it outside of the ten-minute trial period.  As retirees, we don't write letters much anymore (does anyone?) and WORD is such a powerful program with so many features that unless you use it regularly, well, you will forget how to use it.

I still know how to use WORD 2000, which I bought 26 years ago and still runs perfectly (thank you very much) on my old Windows 7 machines.  But I use it less and less.  The last time was to edit a document for Mr. See for the Arts Association.  And yes, most people use the ".docx" format (a scam, as I noted before, to force WORD users to migrate to subscription model) but it is east to import a .doc file to Apache Open Office and save it as a .docx file, without even having to learn the details of Open Office.

It is like how Chrome lets you open .pdf files and even enter data fields, save the file and print it - all most users really want to do - without having to buy or use a copy of Adobe Acrobat (a bloated piece of software that no one loves anymore).  CutePDF allows you to create a PDF file from any program that allows you to print - it "prints" to a PDF file.  Free, too.

I digress, yet again.

Everything, it seems, is a pitch for money on Windows 11 - monthly fees.  Even HP gets in on the game, offering to extend the warranty for a "modest" fee.  Subscribe to WORD!  Subscribe to Outlook Plus!  Subscribe to Windows itself!  You will own nothing and be happy the silicon valley bros tell us.  I think the end result is many of us would rather just own nothing.

Which brings us to the Chromebook.  I was ambivalent about the Chromebook - I bought one a few years back on the advice of a reader and I used it to stream Netflix to my "dumb" television at the time.  But for the most part, it sat unused.  Recently, I dusted it off and gave it a second look.  As a retiree, I don't create and store documents on my computer much anymore.  Indeed, even working people store their stuff in the cloud or on a company server (and of course, you can always download your cloud data to a removable hard drive if you need backup).  Maybe the Chromebook needs a second look.

As much as we all hate Google - the "Don't be Evil" mantra was dropped a long time ago - my dive into the world of Microsoft made me realize why Google initially adopted that slogan.  Comparing the two ecosystems is interesting.  While Google has drifted toward the dark side, Microsoft has become Satan personified - making so many cash-grabs as to make their software non-functional or at least pointless for the average user.

What's more, since the world is morphing to a smart phone environment, the Chromebook makes more and more sense.  When I power up the Chromebook, all my tabs, my passwords, my files, and even my add-ons (including Adblock plus!) are automatically on there.  I have one-stop shopping, one interface, one way of doing things.  I don't have to "switch gears" from one ecosystem to another, it is seamless.  For the average user, a Chromebook might be all they need.  Well, at least for me, in retirement, it seems to be all I need.

Of course, Microsoft has noticed this and they have tried to make Windows 11 look netbook-like.  They call the programs "apps" so you think it is like a smart phone.  But like the ill-fated Windows phone, the Microsoft Zune, and a host of other failed "me too!' products, it is a half-hearted attempt.  Even its few successes, such as Xbox have been troubled as of late.  Microsoft historically has always been shitty software, copied from others, bloated and slow, and never as good as the original.  They have always relied on monopoly practice to maintain market share and their market share to maintain monopoly practice.  Capitalism doesn't always anoint the  best and brightest.

MS-DOS was a shitty copy of CP/M.  Windows was a shitty copy of Xerox PARC's GUI (including its invention - the mouse).  Internet Explorer was a shittier copy of Netscspe Navigator and WORD was a crappy version of WordPerfect - both succeeded because they were given away for free with every copy of Windows, which every new computer came with, by default.  I could go on, but you get the idea - Microsoft blows chunks, always has, always will. It reminds me of my time at GM in the late 1970s or indeed even up to today - bloated management, mediocre products, and reliance of market share and consumer inertia to keep selling products.

But for how long?  Just as expensive gas killed SUV sales in 2008 and bankrupted GM, something may have to give at Microsoft in the end.  Subscription fees are seen as a cash-grab by most consumers. Sure, companies might consider this the cost of doing business.  It would be smart for Microsoft to go back to the model of getting consumers to sign on for free and then relying on corporate accounts to pay the freight.  If you have an installed base of employees using Windows, well, it makes sense for your company to use it as well.

Today, the largest installed base for software is Android - on smart phones.  Schools are going to inexpensive netbooks running Android, as they can afford to buy them cheap and not worry when the kids trash them.  A whole new generation is being raised on Chromebooks, much as an earlier generation was raised on Apple II machines (but that is going back a ways!), or more recently, Windows.   Just food for thought.

Of course, many have issues with Google and our European friends are trying to "de-Google" themselves from that ecosystem as well.  There is a lot to dislike about Google, but it is a system that is so ridiculously easy to use and FREE as well, on the consumer level.  Google is taking a page from the early Microsoft playbook, while Microsoft seems to be acting like a failing company, making that last desperate cash-grab so they can boost the bottom line and the C-suite can cash in a few more stock options before it all goes bust.

And bust it seemes to be going. Microsoft finally announced some changes to Windows 11 - to make it less intrusive, fewer ads, fewer forced updates, etc.  The hue and cry against Windows 11 has been loud and long.  Forced upgrades and early sunsetting of earlier versions are not sitting well with a lot of folks.  Thankfully, our European friends are passing regulations against such things and as a result, improving products worldwide.  The next time you hear a friend bash the EU, remind them that those "onerous regulations" from Brussels gave us the universal charging plug that works on ALL phones, tablets, laptops, netbooks, etc.  No more drawer-full of incompatible plugs!  And soon, we may go back to removable batteries as well.  While we wallow in unfettered capitalism, Europeans are deciding what is best for themselves, not for a few shareholders.

But I digress.

One final thought: Many argue that LINUX is the wave of the future and also of the distant past.  LINUX is everywhere and nowhere all at once.  The UNIX kernal forms a key part of Android, oddly enough, so maybe LINUX sort of is, already the default operating system.  Of course, it is in a lot of hardware consumers never see, such as servers and industrial applications  Like I said, it is everywhere and nowhere all at once.  One place that seems to resist it is the PC - unless you are a dedicated hobbiest with a lot of time on your hands, converting an existing computer to LINUX is a frustrating task - at best maybe you can hope for a LINUX partition and then switch between that and Windows.  But what is the point of that?

Maybe the Chromebook is the LINUX laptop of the future - if Google plays its cards right.

UPDATE:  I suppose I should comment on HP as well - once a storied company and the very original (or at least one of the earliest) "Garage Startups" (whose garage is now a museum) of Silicon Valley.  I cut my teeth, as an instrumentation technician, on HP hardware - oscilloscopes, frequency counters, and the like.  Later, its "Laserjet" printers became an industry standard.  The company was kind of run into the ground by a new CEO who would rent out stadiums and force employees to attend worship services anointing her as some sort of false God.  They did the usual cash-grab subscription thing with proprietary cartridges - abusing copyright law to insure no 3rd party ink was used in their machines.  It all went horribly wrong when people decided that printing things was no longer so important.  The consumer always has the ultimate weapon in their back pocket - the choice not to consume at all.

Today, the company still sells laptops and printers - made in China, of course.  But I suspect it is more of a Trademark management company than anything close to the Engineering firm of yore.

Like a Netbook, it had few plugs.  Two USB-C ports, either used for charging the battery, one USB port (for your mouse?) and oddly enough, a 1/8" micro audio jack, even though it has Bluetooth.  Go Figure.  I don't recall it having an HDMI, either, but I could be wrong about that.

Like the Windows 10 machine (and the Chromebook) it has a touchscreen - like your phone!  I have mixed feelings about this.  Screens get greasy and nasty as a result, much as keyboards do (I had to remove food from the Windows 10 laptop keyboard and may end up disassembling it and cleaning it - something that any laptop needs periodically as the vents clog up with lint, dust, dead skin, pet hair, and God-knows-what).  It is convenient, but then again, the icons you are supposed to click on are tiny, and my meaty shithooks are too large to select dainty tabs on the display.  I end up going back to the touchpad or mouse.

Like most new laptops, it is very thin, because, reasons.  You need thin!  Thin is in!  You don't want to be mocked on your next red-eye flight by pulling a thick computer out of you briefcase, right?  Thin also means no DVD-drive, so I had to plug in my DELL external DVD drive I bought on eBay for ten bucks a few years back.

The ancient traditions still survive,.In Japan, they have just now abandoned the floppy disc and upgraded to... CD-ROMs.  Yes, the Japanese love physical media, and maybe they are on to something (they love cash, too, and credit cards are - or were - rare over there).  The sudden switch to optical storage has meant a spike in the demand for external optical drives.

My $10 DVD drive is now worth a fortune!

Doing the Math - Does the present generation have it harder than before? (UPDATED)

 

Tropes like this are repeated often online.  But do they make sense?

In my lifetime, the population of the United States has gone from 170 million people, to nearly 350 million, an increase of over 100%.   Meanwhile, the amount of real estate and resources have remained largely finite.  Waterfront property, for example, once common for the working man, is now a carefully rationed commodity for only the very wealthy.  Our condos in Pompano Beach, were originally built for the middle-class retired auto worker.  Today, middle class people end up moving to the landlocked western edge of the County, where they can have pretend mansions, but no water access.  Meanwhile, on the Intracoastal, real mansions spring up for the very lucky few.

But is the deck stacked against the newer generations?  Given the population boom, it is no wonder that things are more costly, scarce, and crowded.  It is not your imagination - driving was a lot easier back in the heyday of the Interstates, when brand-new pot-hole free roads were largely vacant, and you could rev up your Turnpike Cruiser to 110 MPH with little or no traffic to contend with.  Today, we fight for a lane change or a parking space.  We are a more crowded nation.

However....

The above trope has appeared like clockwork on Reddit every few days for the last few months.  Is it really true or not?  Are people really paying $7 a dozen for eggs?  According to some sites, Americans are paying $3.59 on average and maybe $5 or more for "organic" eggs at Walmart.  Sure, during the egg shortage, prices shot up - which tells me two things.  First, this is an old "meme" recycled from a few years ago.  Second, the people posting this are likely overseas, trying to stir up discontent (or generate rage bait and engagement) and have no idea how much eggs cost in the USA.

In 1987, the year I moved to Washington at age 27, eggs cost less than a dollar a dozen - about 78 cents, according to some sources.  That would be worth about $2.25 today, so yes, eggs are more expensive than before, in real terms, but not $7 a dozen expensive, rather half that.

Rent is another issue.  I noted in an earlier posting that I paid $900 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in Hunting Towers, back in 1987.  The apartment building is still there and today, now called the Bridgeyard Apartments.  The apartment, on their site listed as "The Duke" rents for $2100 a month. Such an outrage!  But $900 in 1987 is worth $2612 today, so if anything, rents have gone down in the last 39 years.

But what about crippling student loan debt?  Surely the earlier generations didn't have to deal with that!  Well, I graduated from law school in 1992 after 14 years of part-time, full-time, and night school, with tuition reimbursement from my employers (partial!) and some help from my parents, as well as money I paid with my salary.  Even then, I graduated with $38,000 in student loan debt - and much of it was unnecessary, if only I learned to live on less.  We lived large on student loans - and kids still do today.  Luxury student housing is (or was) one of the largest growth areas in rental construction.

$38,000 in 1992 is worth about $89,500 today - far more than the fifty grand postulated in the meme above.  Yet, I was able to pay it all back, mostly because I refused the kind offers to refinance over 30 years at astronomical interest rates.  Yea, it was a pain in the ass, but I paid it off.  And in retrospect, it wasn't a lot of money, given that after a decade or two, I spent more than that on cars or boats or whatever.

And yea, cars are more expensive today - in real terms - than in the past. My Mother's 1973 Vega was advertised at a starting price of $1999 - about $15,000 today.  Today, the cheapest car you can buy brand new, is a Nissan Versa for about twenty grand.  But unlike eggs, a lot has changed in cars over the years.  Things like airbags, disc brakes, air conditioning, four-speaker stereos, etc, were either just not available or expensive options that few could afford.  Today, they are standard equipment.  And cars today last far longer than the 65,000 miles we got out of that Vega before the engine seized and the fenders rusted through.

A good used car today costs less, in real terms, than that Vega ever did, and is a far better value as well - lasting longer and providing more standard equipment.  Comparing technology and prices today with the past is always problematic.  Yes, Internet service sucked back in the 1960's.  Yes, I am being sarcastic.

But the point is valid.  We paid $35 for a "land line" back in the day.  Today, I pay $65 a month for a smart phone with 75GB of streaming data.  It actually costs less than the landline phone of yesteryear and does so much more.  The world hasn't entirely gone to pot..

But prices are only half the equation, right?  Wages haven't kept up with inflation!  And this may be a salient point, particularly in the last few years, as low-wage jobs in particular, fall behind.  In 1987, I started out as as GS-7-1225 Patent Examiner for the princely sum of $22,500.  While a boost from the $17,000 I was making as a lab tech at Carrier, it was a struggle to get by in the big city.  Sharing a place with my life mate was a big start.

Today, starting salary for a Patent Examiner can range from $57,000 to $65,000, which is on par with what today's value of my 1987 salary would be (about $65K).  So wages have kept up, at least in some fields.

This is not to say things are Even-Steven, or that Gen-Z is coming out ahead.  Far from it - they have inherited a far more crowded world than the one I lived in.  I recounted before how,  when my boomer elders graduated from college, they migrated to the "Sun Belt" which was largely unpopulated until the popularizing of air conditioning.  When I was born, most of America was crowded into the Northeast, and also on the West Coast.  Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and Florida were just not nearly as populated as they are today.  Heck, Florida was mostly part-time snowbirds - many houses simply didn't have air conditioning as no one lived in them during the summer months.  A lot has changed over time.

Of course, there isn't much left in the way of "undiscovered country" in the USA, except perhaps Detroit - or maybe the rust belt will have a revival (it seems to be happening, believe it or not!).  No, things are not the same as before.  But neither are they as dire as the meme above implies.

Then again, I guess some guy running a Pakistani bot farm wouldn't know that.

UPDATE:  Another meme posted online is the plea, "I have a Master's degree and can't find a good paying job!  They promised me that if I went to college, I would end up with a high-paying job!"

First of all, who is "They" - your parents, your teachers, your guidance counselor?  Nowhere in this decision matrix did you offer your own opinion on the matter?  It is convenient to blame unseen others for one's own problems - as I noted before.  But it is a cop-out, as it is a convenient way to avoid taking responsibility for one's own actions.

Second, the "Masters Degree" (in what? from where?) is also telling.  When you can't be bothered to type a few words explaining your supposed credentials, something is up.  Either the whole posting is from an overseas bot farm, or the poster (if real) knows that he will be shouted down with gales of laughter when he says, "Masters Degree in Philosophy."

Not all college degrees are the same value.  In fact, as I noted before, some are worthless or even have a negative value in the job market.   You go to Cornell in Ithaca, New York and major in Agitation Studies - and spend all your time protesting this or that - and have a "C" average, then not only will it not lead to a good job, but will actually drive away prospective employers.  Ithaca is like a roach motel - people go there for college and never leave, working the rest of their lives in the service sector.

The sad thing is, this "student loan debacle" has been going on for decades, not mere days.  Anyone graduating in the last ten years can't claim ignorance of the predatory nature of student loans, or the worthless degrees awarded by online "for-profit" Universities - that flood the airwaves even today, with their inspirational ads.

18-year-olds make dumb decisions to be sure.  I know a young woman who turned down a full scholarship at my law school Alma Mater, to study "International Law" (which is not really a thing anymore, if it ever was) at a "name brand" law school, paying full tuition and taking out six-figure loans.  Now she is working as a public defender, hoping her "service" will wipe the loan balance clean.

It is sad, but you tell a young person they can get away from their families and party for four years (and maybe get laid) and they will do just that.  When I graduated from High School in 1978, everyone with a pulse got an "acceptance letter" from an infamous Florida University.  The joke was, you could go there and party and major in "underwater basket weaving" or snorkeling or some such.  Party schools and party majors have always been around.

But maybe not for long.  Small liberal arts colleges are folding right and left, and even "big" schools like Syracuse University are closing down many liberal arts majors and laying off staff as a result (tip 'o the hat to a reader for alerting me to this).  SU thrived on foreign students paying full-boat bloated tuition, and now Trump has scared them off.  Meanwhile, student-consumers are looking critically at schools and majors and maybe walking away, saying, "Nah!" to crippling student loan debt.

College is a way to park young people out of the job market for a few years.  In many cases - of people I personally know - college was an expensive party and something of a detour in life.  Often, they end up learning a skill or trade on the job, in order to find reasonable employment.

Staggering student loan debt it not a mandate!

Deducting Medical Expenses

When I was younger, I never thought about deducting medical expenses, as I didn't have any.  But now...

NOTE:  Consult your tax advisor for current tax law in your jurisdiction.  Your mileage may vary.

Mr.See has always had problems with teeth.  Mine are strong, but not particularly attractive.  But as I asked my Dentist, "Will they last another 20 years or so?" and he replied, "Yes, of course!"  I said, "Good, that's all I will need them for!"

Mark on the other hand, has had to go through several painful root canals, and when our old Dentist's newly minted Dentist son - fresh from dental school - offered to do them yet again, Mark said, "Let's GTFO!"

We found a new Dentist who referred us to a specialist (Endodontist) who in turn referred Mark to an oral surgeon.  Turns out, it is far easier to simply replace a tooth than to go through three root canals.  And the overall cost is competitive.  Three root canals > One tooth replacement.

Still,  you are looking at $5000 and up, per tooth, and Mark has three bad ones.  Medical expenses, including dental, are deductible to the extent they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.  For 2025, our income was high, because of the condo sale.  But for 2026, it will go down again.

That being said, our total medical expenses for 2025 do exceed 7.5% of AGI, when you factor in all the expenses.

We had to go to the Mayo clinic several times for early morning appointments, necessitating an overnight stay.  At 87 miles one-way, auto expenses are reimbursed at a special medical rate of 21 cents per mile.  It adds up, and once you are over that 7,5% hurdle, you might want to think about all the things you spend money on that fall under "medical" including insurance premiums.  Co-pays, prescription costs - it all adds up!

I calculated our total medical expenses for 2025 included:

MAS Expenses:  $7552.14

RPB Expenses:  $3936.92

Lodging:            $ 584.09

Mileage:             $  301.14

Premiums:          $4214.50

TOTAL:          $16,588.79

Ouch.  Didn't see that coming!  So many Seniors claim they "never get a bill!" with Medicare, but they pay monthly for a supplemental plan plus a drug plan, plus co-pays on drugs and doctor's visits and treatments (in some cases).  And getting dental covered is problematic - you can pay a LOT in premiums, and end up with only 50% coverage - at a dentist not of your choice.  And no doubt, the insurance company would say, "do another root canal!"  Bastards!

American medical billing!  Swell ain't it?  At least we don't have socialism! I can buy a go-fast boat with the money I save by letting others die in the street!  Survival of the fittest, baby!  Yee-Haw!  /s

This exercise illustrates why logging your expenses is important for tax purposes.  Quickbooks made generating these reports easy.   ClearCheckbook can log purchases and generate reports, but only if you pay $5 a month (discount for yearly payment) for the deluxe web package.  As I use the program more, I start to like it more.   The only sticking point is online storage.  We'll see.

CAVEAT:  Medical expenses are apparently only deductible if you itemize!  Again, consult your tax specialist for more details.  So the whole exercise may be for naught.  Schedule 1-A this year has some interesting gimmies - interest deduction for new car loans (through 2028), deduction for overtime pay, no tax on tips, and a special deduction for seniors (The Big Bad Bill).  How will Trump pay for his war?  Oh, right, by cutting medicare!  Oh shit.  Goodbye Mayo!

By the way, this year we are filing a 1040-SR - the tax return for Senior Citizens!

Gummies

Gummies are the next big thing, but are they really a good thing?

As you get older, you take a lot more pills, some prescription and some are supplements. Vitamins and such, for example.

The prices aren't cheap, at least at the retail store. Oftentimes, a small bottle of vitamins or supplements can cost $20 or more. If you shop online, you can find the cost a lot less, particularly if you buy in bulk.

Prices are all over the board, however. Some retailers are selling a small bottle of 100 vitamins for more than another retailer is selling a bottle of 500, with the same dosage and chemical content. You really have to look at the cost per pill when comparing these things. In most cases, Amazon shows this value, in other cases you have to get out your calculator.

But one thing is clear, vitamins and supplements presented as gummies are usually 5 to 10 times as expensive as pills. I'm not sure why we want our vitamins and other pills to be treated like candy. Not only is it far more costly, it seems to me to be rather dangerous.

For example, I acquired from a friend of mine a large bottle of vitamin C gummies. I also got a large bottle of vitamin C pills which has a lot more servings for a lot less money. But what concerns me is that the vitamin C gummies taste like and look like candy, down to the sugar crystals dotting the outsides.  A child could easily confuse these with actual candy and would be tempted to eat the entire bottle. I'm not sure what the results would be other than a lifelong immunization from scurvy.

It just strikes me as odd that we put child-proof caps on everything these days, even things that you don't think a child would want to consume. I have a child-proof cap on my mouthwash, but nobody at their right mind wants to drink  mouthwash. I'm sure a child trying to drink it would spit it out shortly.

But pills? We make them intentionally enticing by making them look like and taste like candy. It makes no sense to me.

Marijuana gummies - which is what most people think of, when you say, "Gummies" in the first place - merely compounds the problem.  Little Suzie goes to visit Hippie Grandma and ends up passed out on the floor after eating a whole box full.  Since it takes nearly an hour for the effects to be felt, it isn't hard for a child to wolf down a handful without feeling initial effects.  As an adult, even a whole one of these makes me fall asleep, or more precisely, pass out.  I can't imagine what a handful would do to a kid.  Why aren't these provided as pills?  Why are they not in childproof packages? (Many times they are not!).

I recently ordered some multivitamins for "Men over 50," and the cost per bill was about 4 cents each. The same multivitamin in gummy form was 15 cents each, and some places wanted as much as 29 cents apiece. I'm not sure paying several times the cost of something in order to have it as candy is really a cost-effective thing.

Of course, many question the efficacy of many of these vitamins and supplements. Many nutritionists point out that if you have a balanced diet you probably don't need a multivitamin. And in some cases vitamins and supplements can actually be harmful to you. The vitamin supplement industry is a little shady to say the least.

Making these things look like candy it's just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Non Compos Mentis

I had to cheat on my cognitive test!

Another trip to Mayo, and I am not sure any of it is useful.  To recap, after spending over $100,000 of your taxpayer money, they found my organs are all in remarkably healthy condition - except my brain.  And there is nothing they can do about that, other than to prescribe medication.  So here we are.

They wanted to do cognitive testing, which took three hours to complete.  It is far more difficult than the "Montreal Protocol" shown above (which I sent to Mr. See during a break, as a joke).  They give you a string of numbers - like seven of them - and you have to read them back, in reverse.  I didn't think I would do well at that, but the trick for me was to read back the numbers first in original order, quickly (like it was one word) and then reverse the order.

I did well with arranging the bi-colored blocks into patterns, which sounds like child's play (and it was at first) but when they keep adding blocks and putting the pattern on the diagonal, it does get tricky.  I can see some "normal" people struggling with this.

But the interesting part was word listing.  "Give me all the words you can think of starting with the letter F, you have one minute!"  My mind went blank - possibly because it reminded me of the scene from Sense and Sensibility where they try to guess the name of Elinor's new boyfriend:

"His name begins with F. F? A promising letter. Foster? Forrest? Fotheringay? Featherty? - Fortescue? - Fondant?"

I sort of stalled after that.

The point of the test is to establish a starting point to measure my mental decline.  They can re-test a year or two from now and chart where I am falling behind.  Again, the purpose of this is somewhat ambiguous to me - I already know how far I have fallen.  What's the point of drawing a graph?

All that being said, I have no doubt I did better on the test than Trump did!

New Scam: The "VIN Report" Scam

When someone demands you go to an unknown site, beware!

I got a late-night text from an Oregon phone number asking if the trailer we are selling is "still available."   They wanted to see it tomorrow - all the way from Oregon!  Two red flags right there.  The "Is the item still available?" is the other red flag.  The "item"?  ESL!

Anyway, I played along and the guy wanted something like the "AVR" report and gave a link to an unknown website that purportedly generates CarFax-like reports.  I did not click on it.  I searched online and (after bypassing Google AI) found several sites discussing the scam.  Google AI helpfully chimed on, saying the site link was trustworthy!  Google AI sucks.

Don't click on such links.  The "VIN Report" site is fake and they want $25 for a "VIN Report" and for some reason, the buyer will only accept this one type of report.  They basically steal your credit card number and whatever other information they can get.

Buying and selling a car or other big-ticket item by yourself can be stressful.  Con artists play on your fear (that it will never sell, because you overpriced it!) or your greed (that you are going to make a lot of money selling it to a guy who immediately agrees to pay asking price, sight unseen).  Or people think they are going to buy something for 1/10th its value.  So people fall for these traps.

It sounds like a lot of work to steal credit card numbers, but since the texts are automated, it isn't hard to set the hook initially, and the scammers are working dozens of cons at one time, and if one plays out, so much the better.

Of course, the big red flag for me is that, generally speaking, trailers don't have VIN reports, and indeed, Craigslist and eBay both point out that the VIN number has no data associated with it.  A Canadian VIN number, registered in the US, doubly so.  So when these Bozos contact me asking for a "VIN report" on a travel trailer, well, the game is up before they start.

Got another one this AM - again from Oregon (why?) wanting to see the trailer tomorrow.  When I asked them where they were located, they replied, "Jekyll Island)" including the half-parentheses they cut and pasted from the CL listing. Nice Try, I replied.

It is all part of the enshittification of the Internet.  Since it is a worldwide web and still largely anonymous, it is easy for those overseas (or even domestically) to start scams, often automated, with a yield rate of 1-2% at best.  But since you can send out texts to millions of people, the returns can be substantial.

Craigslist is pretty dead these days.  Around here, it is mostly rednecks selling broken trash. "Two rotted fenceposts - $20"  I kid you not.  I listed some items there (bike rack, roof rack, Yakima stuff) and got NO responses.  I tried Facebook Marketplace by re-enacting my old account (closed ages ago) and they let me put up ONE ad.  Then they suspended the account, I guess because it had been deleted previously.  They wanted an image of my driver's license, which I had sent before, and then a VIDEO of my face (so they can do a deepfake of me?) to restore the account.  I took a pass.

I listed the trailer on fiberglassrv.com and the Escape Trailer forum (both owned by the same online entity, I discovered).  But it is like advertising your BMW on a BMW forum.  Everybody on there already has one!  We paid $30,000 for the trailer, new (seven years ago), and people had theirs listed on the enthusiast sites for $40,000 to $50,000!  I mean, yea, inflation, but really?  You price yours realistically and you get shouted down because you are "destroying the resale value of their trailer!"

We ran into the same thing with my friend's C5 Corvette - the car no one buys, sells, or drives.  "It's worth more than that!  I'm not just giving it away!"  Your kids will, though.

The trailer is on eBay with a "buy it now" price of $30K and a starting bid of $15K and two bids so far.  I want  it sold, not sitting on my lawn while I mow around it for several seasons, like they do in Central New York.

This is not entirely by chance, either.  The car pricing guides (KBB, Edmunds, NADA, etc.) have changed or been sold and are now hard to use.  You go online to see what your car is worth and are bombarded with ads to sell you a new car.  Resale data is hard to find, if you can find it at all. And with all the scams and hassles of selling private party, companies like CARMAX and CARVANA make it sound appealing to just use their services instead.

Car dealers hate private party sales and no doubt would outlaw them if they could.  They kind of sorta already have.

Choke Points In The Economy

 If you could get every American to send you a dollar, you'd have about $330 million overnight.

I made the above quote a long time ago to illustrate how it is possible to get very rich by taking a little money from a lot of people, as opposed to taking a large sum from one person.  In those "caper" movies, the thieves meticulously plan a bank job or casino heist, to get away with millions.  But, as illustrated in the sequel to Ocean's 11, the people with large amounts of money have large amounts of power - and will track you down and punish you.

The Police will go after a bank robber who steals a large amount of money from a storied American institution.  They will laugh in your face when you tell them that a telcom swiped a buck from your account.  The best you can hope for is a class-action lawsuit, and we know who wins those.  The lawyers make millions, while the victims get pennies.

"So," you ask, "how do I go about stealing a buck from every American?"  Good Question.  And the answer is to find a choke-point in the economy and exploit it, before the great unwashed masses figure out what you are up to and get regulations passed limiting your fun.

What sort of choke points?  Well, let's look at the historical record.  Transportation is one of these choke points.  You may have a field full of crops, and in the city 100 miles away are hungry customers.  How do you connect the two?  Roads was one way - and back in the 1800's, there were "Corduroy" roads made of logs, which you could drive a wagon on, provided you paid a toll.   Over time, governments got into the business of road-building, and indeed, politicians ran on platforms of "good roads."

Roads became free for the public, although the toll road still remained in part - and is seeing a resurgence in the last 20 years or so.  We even have private toll roads again - the "free market" people have won again.  But nothing is free in the free market.

Cornelius Vanderbilt made his first fortune in shipping, controlling enough of the market to control shipping prices.  Of course, while you might be able to control the ships, local governments control the ports, and port fees, taxes, and duties can add to the cost of shipping.  "Smuggling" as it first emerged, meant simply bypassing official ports to avoid paying duties.  Small boats could row ashore to "Smuggler's Cove" and bring in the goods at a lower price (and higher profit) than by going through official channels, if you'll pardon the pun.

Vanderbilt famously sold off all his shipping interests to amass vast holdings in railroads.  Railroads were the "Next Big Thing!" and allowed freight to be move vast distances in a short period of time.  As America expanded, railroads were key to economic growth.  Railroads were granted vast tracts of land out west, which they sold to farmers, who in turn used the railroads to ship crops to city markets.

Farmers did well, initially, until the railroads raised rates to the point the farmers were losing money.  Vanderbilt and others found a choke-point and exploited it.  Eventually, the government stepped in and regulated rates through the Interstate Commerce Act, to make rates just and fair. Those damn regulations!  Spoiling all the fun for would-be Millionaires.  What's next?  An income tax?

Of course, over time, new forms of transportation emerged.  Young people today romanticize train travel and the old trolleys, but my parent's generation couldn't wait to get their hands on an automobile and be free of high fares and limited schedules.  My Dad learned to drive on a Model-T - it was not that long ago!  Roads, including the Interstate Highway System, were paid for with tax dollars, and America took to the car, by choice.  Gas was cheap and the highway beckoned.  Air travel was the final nail in the coffin.  Passenger train service was now unprofitable and by the 1970s, the major railroads gave up their passenger services to the government to form money-losing AMTRAK.

It is a trend that goes on worldwide, too.  While our overseas friends have far more (and better) train service than we do, they are building more and more highways and closing more and more train lines. We saw this in Japan three decades ago, as well as in Europe.  They still rely on public transportation a lot, but car travel, worldwide, has ratcheted up.  China is the best example - only a few decades ago, bicycles crowded the streets.  Now it is the largest market for cars in the world.

I digress, but lighting is another example of a choke point.  In the colonial era, candles were the thing, often home-made by settlers boiling down bear fat to make tallow or some such.  Whale oil emerged as a bright and clean alternative and was in such a demand that whalers could make a fortune overnight with just one voyage - and entire species of whales were driven to near-extinction.

Crude oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and it was found it could be distilled down to kerosene, with nuisance byproducts like gasoline simply thrown away.  Some tried to dilute their wares with junk gasoline, which could cause a Dietz lantern to explode.  A young John D. Rockefeller came up with his "Standard Oil" which was guaranteed to be free of contaminants.  He bought up competing oil companies and formed a monopoly - a choke-point - in the kerosene lighting business.

It is interesting to note that his real fortune was created almost by accident.  Just as some laud Bill Gates or Elon Musk as visionaries who saw the future and invested accordingly, the reality is, people can get lucky by making the right choices without even realizing it.  The invention of the automobile could not have been envisioned in the kerosene lamp era.  The rise of the automobile caused gasoline to go from a nuisance byproduct to a highly valuable commodity.

Once again, regulators stepped in, and Standard Oil was "broken up" (but later reformed as Exxon/Mobil only a few decades later).  Needless to say, however, our reliance on oil is the new choke point in our economy - one that has been around for a long, long time.

The automobile infrastructure is largely open-sourced.  Roads are largely funded by tax dollars, not tolls.  Cars are bought by individuals in an open market, where competition keeps prices down and profits at a minimum.  Tesla was valued more than Ford for the simple reason that Tesla made more money per car (and more money with emissions credits) that Ford did.  On a good day at General Motors, we would be ecstatic with a 5% profit margin.  GM went bankrupt since then, Chrysler did, twice, and Ford nearly went under.

No, the choke point in transportation today is in the fuel.  In 1973, we had our first oil shock as OPEC cut production.  We came to realize that we had become dependent on cheap oil, using it for everything, even power generation and home heating.  One of my professors at GMI pointed out that, at the time, it would take a half-a-cup of crude oil to produce a cup of milk.  Between the energy needed to run the farm (from a oil-fired power plant to a diesel-burning tractor) to the transportation costs (diesel fuel for trucks and trains) to refrigeration for storage and so on, a lot of energy is needed to make even one cup of milk appear at your grocery store.  And at the time, most of that energy came from oil.

Some things have changed since then, others have not.  We use a lot more natural gas these days - supplanting or converting coal or oil-fired electric plants.  Other, renewable energy sources have come online.  And today, our country produces more oil than it consumes - so we should be insulated from overseas disruptions in supply, right?

Well, not exactly.  The oil market is a world market, and when supplies are cut off, everyone bids up the price of oil, worldwide, to try to get a share.   American producers aren't going to sell to America for far less than what they could get overseas, so the price of oil in America goes up with the rest of the world.

More than a half-century since the Arab Oil Embargo, they still got us by the balls.  The Strait of Hormuz is the new choke-point, or should I say, has been a choke-point for a long time.  Periodic attacks on ships in this region have been going on for some time, now.  Maybe those were just test runs.   Attacks on Oil infrastructure in the Middle-East as well as in Russia (and sanctions) mean the supply of oil, worldwide, might be cut in half - or worse.

Meanwhile, Americans, once again, were lured into buying large, gas-hog vehicles, by the siren song of low gas prices.  To make things worse, the rest of the world is catching up with the American standard of living.  As I noted before, China is now the world's largest car market, and even  our European and Japanese friends are embracing the car.  Meanwhile, Germany is rethinking its decision to shut down all its nuclear plants.  Say, do you think they fell victim to a Russian disinformation campaign?

But I digress.

There are, of course, other choke-points in the economy, and the Internet has become one.  Early on, the Internet was a free-for-all, with no one group, company, or person really controlling the whole thing.  I remember when "browsers" became a thing - no more dialing up in "terminal mode" to type in ASCII characters on a CRT monochrome terminal.  It was an advance, yes, but I sensed we were losing something at the same time.

Today, Google controls a huge part of the Internet, and initially, it wasn't such a bad thing.  But then they decided to "enshittify" everything, by putting ads all over the place and making search results one big ad or AI-slop responses.  And there ain't much we can do about it, as we are pretty embedded at this point.  The Blogsite I am typing on is, of course, owned by Google.  Damn your eyes, Google!  I love you!  I hate you!

Our European friends are wisely looking for ways to "de-google" themselves, but it ain't easy.  I can understand their concerns - their entire communications network is dependent on companies headquartered in a country which has shown to be an erratic, untrustworthy ally.  Maybe it is time to move on - to Internet X.0

Speaking of silicon valley, that is nothing more than a host of choke-points today, or choke-point wanna-bes.  Want to take a taxi somewhere?  Uber has pretty much sewn up that market, and even taxi services in far-flung foreign countries, pay tithes to silicon valley firms.  But for how long?  Eventually, people go looking for lower-cost alternatives, and if you tighten the screws too much, people will jump ship eventually - or demand the government step in.

And the government has stepped in, time and time again.  We have regulated utilities today, simply because we realize that the anarchy of the "free market" isn't going to work for something that everyone relies upon, 24/7.   I noted how the ICC regulated railroads, but they also regulated trucking lines at one time.  And of course, during the glory days of airline regulation, you could pay as much for an airline ticket as you would for a good used car - and fly almost alone on a 727 jet from Syracuse to Hartford, as I did once as a teenager.

Deregulation of trucking and airlines changed all that.  Flying is more affordable today, of course, but a lot less pleasant, to be sure.  Truckers are no longer the "Knights of the Road" as Anne Landers once described them, but quite likely to be texting-while-driving or engaging in road-rage with a 50,000-lb battering ram.  There are pluses and minuses, here.

If it is any consolation, these choke-points don't exist for long, at least not on a cosmic scale.  "The Market Abhors a Monopoly" Economists chant, and to some extent, they are right.  Either the people get pissed-off and demand the government take action, or the price increases force people to seek out lower-cost alternatives.

Despite his bitter hatred of wind farms and solar cells, Trump's ill-advised war will raise oil prices - for some time - to the point where solar and wind and other alternatives (nuclear, hydro, gas) seem far more attractive.  Rather than stamping out alternative energy, Trump has supercharged it.

Of course, the war in Iran could go both ways.  After all, after 20 years, trillions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of deaths, we brought Democracy and Peace to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and finally eliminated the scourge of the Taliban, once and for all.

I am, of course, being sarcastic.  But the record of these interventionist wars - going back as far as Vietnam, is that after a couple of decades of insurgency, death, and debt, we declare victory and go home, with our tail between our legs.  And it ain't just us!  Afghanistan bankrupted the Soviet Union more than a decade before we stepped into that bear trap.

It's not that Iran is a bad actor on the world stage or that they treat their own people badly, but that the idea that we can defeat them easily might be flawed  - at least based on our own track record.

Recall that one reason we stopped going to the moon and scrapped billions of Apollo hardware was that the US Government was being bled to death by the costs of the Vietnam war.

I doubt that will be different this time around.

ClearCheckbook - A First Look (And a Last Look!) UPDATE!

If you want a basic program to balance your accounts and log purchases, well, it's free.

I have tried this "ClearCheckbook" app on my Chromebook for the last few days and it seems to work OK.  It is pretty basic, as in it looks like it was programmed in BASIC on an Altair 880 computer in 1978,  Not that there is anything wrong with that!

PLUSES:  It's free, in its basic form.  You can upgrade to "Premium" for a one-time fee of $4.99.  No monthly subscription required, no staggering costs.  It is simple and basic.  You can enter checks, payments, deposits, withdrawals, and transfers and then "clear" transactions to balance the account with your statement balance or even the running balance on your bank's website.  You can set up recurring bills, but have to manually click on them to enter them.  No ads - or promotions for credit card deals. No offers to check your credit score.  Just basic accounting.

MINUSES:  It's a little primitive and clunky to use.  Not a lot of pull-down menus in the traditional sense, but icons you click on.  It takes a while and some trial-and-error to figure out the best way to enter a transaction.  Then again, this is true for a lot of programs - I am still learning the nuances of Quickbooks 2002!  Memorized transactions include only bills, not deposits or transfers.  The latter can be set as "reminders" and entered with one click later on.  All data is stored on the web, so they see what your finances are like and if you have slow or no internet service, well, you are stuck.

I have not tried the "Premium" version yet, but will probably do so, once I am comfortable with the base version.  There is also apparently a full version that runs "on the web" which provides even more features.  The image above appears to be of that version.  So apparently, there are three versions: The app, the premium app, and the website versions.

Basic accounting software shouldn't need to change over time.  Basic checkbook balancing programs were some of the first software packages sold for nascent PCs - even before the IBM PC came out.  They have not changed much since then.

Quickbooks is a powerful tool - or can be - as you can create invoices, generate reports and charts, and do all sorts of fun things with it.  Over time, however, they keep adding functions to the program to the point where it is almost an e-commerce site, if in fact is already is.  But as a retiree, I have no need to generate invoices or reports.  I just need to make sure the payments I make don't bounce and the statement balance on my credit card is paid off before the due date.

ClearCheckbook, in all three forms, has a "Budget" feature, but I am not sure budgets are of much use.  Our government has a budget office and they set up budgets for every department of government.  In most cases, departments go over budgets, as things happen that can't be anticipated.  For example, starting a war.

Recently, I had to pay our homeowner's/hurricane insurance bill, which was $4000 this year, up over $500 from last year, and another $500 from the year before.  15 years ago, the bill was a little over $1000 and stayed pretty flat for a decade.  Not now.

Then there are medical expenses.  Mine are small, but Mark has had three teeth implants this year, and each costs a few thousand dollars.  Hard to budget for that.  Plus, since we are retired, we basically spend what we need, and if we don't need, we don't spend.

For working people, who can accurately predict their income on a monthly basis, I guess a budget is a good thing and a good way to think about money.  Myself, I found them maddeningly difficult to set up and nearly impossible to follow.

But maybe it is time to start thinking about it again.

UPDATE:  While the program is easy to use (almost two simple) there are three major flaws:

1.  Data is kept on their servers, which means if they decide to pull the plug, you lose everything.

2.  The "description" field erases itself when you save, unless the transaction is a recurring one.  This is frustrating, as all you see is dates and amounts, with no description or payee.

I tried the one-time $4.99 "upgrade" which supposedly adds payee lines, but it didn't seem to change anything other than to put "premium member" in the upper lefthand corner.

Verdict: Not a realistic solution to anything!

UPDATE:  Once you "upgrade" you have to go into settings and enable fields like payee and description.  This allows you to enter data in these fields, but the data evaporates as soon as you hit "save."

The fields automatically erase contents unless you enter them in order, too.  Makes no difference, as the data evaporates once you hit "save".  So all you have is a list of amounts and dates, nothing more.

Poor coding.  And getting an item to save or clear takes a LONG time, which tells me they have limited server capacity.

No reason to make this a cloud program when the data could be saved locally.  Then again, this illustrates the folly of the chromebook.

UPDATE:  There are FOUR versoins of ClearCheckbook, the free "app," the $4.99 "premium" app, a free web-based version (clearcheckbook.com) and a premium web-based version, which has a monthly fee (boo! hiss!) starting at $5 a month.  The web-based version has far more features including generating reports and such.  Once nice thing, is that if you start with the free app, you can also run the free web-based version.

All you data is still in the cloud, though.  Remember Webshots!  Remember Ring thermostats!

UPDATE:  OK, the "app" even in premium mode, is useless!  It takes forever to save and retrieve data.  It looks like an abandoned app, although the app store shows it as updated as of March 2026.

But why bother?  The web version is 1000% better and much clearer.  It doesn't erase description fields like the app did,  The only defect I can see is that your data is on the cloud.

But, then again, if they shut down the server,  you can just start over with some other site, program, or app - as I did when trying out ClearCheckbook.

So maybe we'll give it a try.  At least for a while.