History is messy

 Ours has been a messy history.

Americans like to think history is all about the good guys vs the bad guys, and of course we're always the good guys.  Always.  We believe we are clean and pure and virtuous, when in fact, we've stumbled often.  Ours has not been a linear march to greatness.  "Yes it has been" you might say, "except for that slavery thing 150 years ago."  Oh dear, you'd better sit down.

We got off to a fine start when colonists arrived from Europe seeking a new, better life.  They built living quarters, planted crops....and eventually had to resort to sending raiding parties to demand food from the Native Americans, and in the process burn down their homes.  The Native Americans returned the favor by laying siege to Jamestown where many colonists died during the "starving times".  

The original colonists went on to established a democracy that has stood the test of time and been a beacon of hope for the oppressed of the world.  Yea us!  We also spent several Centuries systematically uprooting the Native Americans off "their" land and pushing them west so we could make it "our" land.  It was messy.

Fast forward 150 years to the Revolutionary War period when the locals objected to paying taxes on various commodities to help pay for Britain's war debts and for keeping a force of 10,000 troops in America.  Sam Adam's Sons of Liberty, disguised as Indians, boarded three British ships carrying tea and chunked it into Boston Harbor in protest.  Patriots or delinquents?  Lets just say the King wasn't impressed.  Relations between the colonies and Britain went steadily downhill until the time of the Declaration of Independence....George Washington's Continental Army....we won....big parade. 

Sam Adams, George Washington, and the boys were revered heroes that we still celebrate today.  But had the British won, Sam, George, and all our Founding Father's would have been hunted down and likely executed as traitors.  It could have been very messy.

For the next 75 or so years, the North developed considerable industry while the South remained overwhelmingly agricultural.  The South needed lots of cheap (slave) labor, the North didn't.  The South sent much of their crops to Europe in exchange for finished goods, which upset the Northerners who wanted the South to buy more of their finished goods from them.  The north wanted import tariffs to help their industry, the South didn't.  Great animosity arose. 

Leading up to the Civil War there was certainly tremendous and proper condemnation of the institution of slavery in the North, but an often soft-peddled fact was that the Northern money interests felt they were leaving money on the table, which chapped them greatly.  It was an incredibly sad, messy bit of our history, but thankfully we got it right.

The North of course won, making Grant and Sherman great war heroes, never mind that Sherman slashed and burned his way across the South to the Atlantic.  Hero or villain?  Depends on who you ask.  It was messy.  Then came Reconstruction, a period of great hardship for the average Southerner, and a period of great prosperity for Northern-backed carpetbaggers.  Oh, and how about that little Ku Klux Klan thing?  Nasty messy! 

How about America's industrial coming of age post Civil War?  Andrew Carnegie built an impressive steel empire worth over $300B in current dollars, and gave away much of it to charity, building thousands of libraries that still bear his name to this day.  What a guy, huh?  Oh, and he was a staunch anti-unionist who hired Pinkerton thugs to keep his workers in line, killing more than a few in the process.  His story was a messy one.

John D. Rockefeller cobbled together the modern oil industry, giving us cheap kerosene for lighting and later, gasoline.  His influence was immeasurable, right?  Yes, but he got where he was by "buying out" (under extreme duress) any small refiner who dared to stand in his way.  OK, honestly, he squashed competitors like bugs.  He got what he wanted, by whatever means were necessary.  His story was messy, too.

And don't forget Henry Ford.  He's the guy who established the original "living wage" and created America's middle class, put us all on wheels, which necessitated a large road network, making suburbs possible, and more.  He was a true visionary.  And BTW, he was also a staunch anti-Semite, anti-unionist, and like Carnegie, employed toughs to keep his employees in line, killing many.  Oooo....messy indeed.

FDR's Alphabet Agencies eventually got Americans back working during the Great Depression....the WPA, TVA, CCC....and the FDIC, FHA, and Social Security, as well.  He was admired by millions, and at the same time widely criticized by many (to this day) for leading America down the road to "Socialism".  Hero or villain?  Messy.  There are still fist fights over this one.

We defeated the Nazi's and the cruel Japanese Empire in WWII.  Surely we get a World Class pat on the back for that one, right?  Umm....ask the decedents of the120,000 Japanese Americans who were interred for the war's duration because we were scared of their names.  DOH!  Otherwise, *fist bump*

But we started the Marshall Plan to keep war ravaged Europe from starving and to help them get back on their feet.  Aren't we nice guys?  Absolutely.  Although our ulterior motive was to keep the Soviets out of our post-war sector of influence, and to create markets for US exports as Europe recovered.  Nothing is as cut and dried as it seems.  Messy.

Late 60's and early 70's....tens of thousands of Americans died in Southeast Asia fighting to stop the spread of communism.  We lost.  Yet we still came back home and built a well deserved tribute on The Mall to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsman who died there.  We celebrated defeat?  No, we honored sacrifice.  Win....lose....history is messy.

The world is seldom a simple good vs evil proposition.  Its evolution is essentially two steps forward and one step back.  Don't jump to conclusions, regardless of your views on history.  The truth is messy.  Look at all sides, and be benevolent winners and forgiving losers.  Life is too short to do otherwise.

S

Mine...mine...IT'S ALL MINE! *cue the scary music*

Did you see the roll-out of the new Trump Tax Reform Plan yesterday?  Have you actually read it?  If you have, it probably didn't take you more than a minute or so as it's really not a "plan", but just a few bullet points.  Here it is if you're interested:

That's it.  This is what The Prez and his Team have been working on for the past 98 days.  Honestly, it looks like something I might have whipped out at 2am the night before a college paper topic outline was due.  I give it a half hour effort, max.

In short, it's insulting.  It seems at first glance to give a break to the middle class by increasing the Standard Deduction, but also seems to take away some possible deductions, too, most notably property TAX deductions.  Property INTEREST deductions appear to be left intact.  What will the middle-class bottom line look like?  Probably either "revenue neutral" (Gubment speak for "no change") or maybe a slight tax cut, just enough to give the incumbent Congressman a good shot at re-election, which is all he cares about.

On the other side, corporations, notably including privately held corporations like Trump, Inc, will make out like absolute bandits!  It will result in tax cuts, on paper at least, to small businesses like mine, but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to what the ultra-wealthy will get.  Let's face it, this is simply another wealth transfer to the rich.  They haven't even made much of an effort to disguise it.  We reportedly already have approx $1.7 TRILLION +/- parked in short term investments looking for a better place.  Another trillion dollars isn't needed....there is NO shortage of investment capital.

The bean counters say the tax cut will leave the Treasury short by approx one TRILLION dollars, to be offset by the ever popular "future growth" somewhere in the future.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

The one possible good thing in there:  The one-time opportunity for corporations to bring back earnings from overseas that they haven't before now because of the higher taxes that would be due here.  This has been done before (so much for "one-time") with minimal success, as it didn't create the new jobs it promised.  Instead companies used their windfall for stock buy-backs and dividends, which *big surprise* went primarily to the already wealthy.

Those who read my protestations will again probably accuse me of being a pinko anti-capitalist, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I am an ARDENT capitalist, one who understands it is the middle class that is truly the goose that laid America's golden egg, and who is trying to see to it it isn't slaughtered.  Right now, in Washington at least, words like mine are like a lonely voice in the forest.

When you stiff the middle class and concentrate too much wealth in the hands of too few, you get Czarist Russia 1917 (revolution), America 1929 (Great Depression), TWA under Carl Icahn, (bankrupt), Eastern Airlines under Frank Lorenzo (kaput), etc.  When companies share their wealth, you get wildly successful stories like The Staubach Companies (Roger Staubach), Broadcast.com (Mark Cuban), Ford (after Henry Ford doubled employee wages), Southwest Airlines, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and more.  The owners actually made MORE money thanks to the efforts of their grateful employees than they EVER made before. Come on people....this ain't rocket surgery!

*sigh*

Rough landing ahead.  Hold on.

S

Not sure what to think of this one....

Sacre bleu!

I read in ze news that the French Senate has unanimously passed a bill that says online booksellers (read: Amazon) can offer consumers either a 5% discount or free shipping, but not both.

My first reaction was, "Why would the French government not want their constituents to get the best deal they could?"  Why, that's just downright un-American!  Umm....wait....

But then I realized they're just trying to keep the smaller booksellers from going out of business.  They're just trying to save jobs.  Hmmm...

But....but....free enterprise....the market....   

It's a real conundrum for sure.  Of course entrepreneurs should be encouraged to bring their new ideas to market.  What if the old school had tried to stifle Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or Steve Jobs?  But at some point you have to wonder how far this should go.  

It's one thing to keep the competition on their toes, but if pricing becomes so predatory (prices so low, sometimes at or even below cost....at least until they get a near-monopoly) they force the smaller competitors out of business entirely, is this really in the consumers best interest?

I think we're now seeing that airline consolidation in America is going to work against the consumer.  (Check fares on the "low cost" carriers.  They're not so low any more.)  It will be great for the airlines and their stockholders, but consumers will pay more.

And now that just 5 big banks control the majority of the banking biz, do you see yourself getting better service or lower fees?  When is the last time you got a free toaster from a hungry bank wanting to gain market share?  Their attitudes sure changed, didn't they?

Major appliance manufacturers are worried, too. That's why, contrary to popular opinion, the big box retailers (Home Depot, Lowe's) do NOT get better wholesale pricing than the mid-sized retailers.  They know that if the big boxes get better pricing and put the smaller guys out of business, then the 2 boxes will in effect "own" the manufacturers.  The manufacturers don't want to lose control.

So more competition is good.  The government should just butt out and let the market do it's thing.  And less competition is bad.  The government should step in and make sure the big don't get too big.  (Don't kid yourself.  Our anti-monopoly regulators are not at all pro-active.)

DOH!  See, conundrum.  We don't live in a black or white world anymore.  Think about it.

S

The greatest invention of all time

What is the greatest invention of all time?  I suppose that depends on where you are and your circumstances.

If you go back far enough it might be the wheel.  Think about it....without wheels we'd probably still be walking.  No carts, wagons, stage coaches, cars, nothing.  We'd spend our lives just dragging stuff around.

Maybe the bow and arrow, and later gunpowder?  Then you could defeat those pesky 'ol Huns trying to storm your castle without having to ruin you nails in hand-to-hand combat.

The telegraph / telephone?  Then you could communicate with friends or do business with people hundreds of miles away.  The common man began to understand there was a big wide world out there.

The harnessing of electricity?  Then we could see and do things after dark.

Oh....these were huge!....trains and automobiles.  Where they were originally rich man's toys, Corny Vanderbilt and Henry Ford put us all on wheels.  Now we could work and play and make stuff for people far away from where we lived.  Until then most people grew up, married and raised families, worked and eventually died within maybe 25 miles of where they were born.  Easy transportation opened up commerce, created jobs, and raised the living standards of the masses.

The airplane?  A personal favorite of mine, it did the same as the automobile, but over longer distances.

Personal computers and the internet?  Now we had the knowledge of the world at our fingertips.  

And of course there are probably regional favorites, too.  I'm sure If you live in the Mid-East you're probably still amazed by toilet paper.  And judging by the way they like to throw them, rocks.  

NOTE:  This is NOT me, although the resemblance is striking.

But for me, a guy who grew up in the South and has become increasingly intolerant of heat, my personal favorite invention of all time is air conditioning.

Definitely, air conditioning.  ;)

What say you?

S

Who invented advertising?

Whoever he was, he was an evil genius.  He has had more influence on the world that we live in today than Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or even Carlo Ponzi.  I mean, any guy who could turn snakes into oil was either a genius or one smooooooooth talker.  

It was advertising that sold Ford Pinto's, women's "housecoats", and OxiClean.  (Hey....you think Billy Mays invented advertising?)  But not Twinkies.  They were a gift from God.  Advertising built the free market system, really.  They invented stuff we didn't need and via advertising made us think our life wouldn't be worth living without it.  

But wait....there's more!

I'm pretty sure an entire branch of advertising has been developed just to sell things specifically to my wife, and they've honed their pitch to a fine art.  I can't tell you how many exercise gizmos, kitchen implements, and hair care and beauty goops she's bought.  

Her latest must-have stuff:  Some kind of "nutritional shake".  This morning she asked me, "Will you be a doll and stop by Whole Foods on your way home and get me some Vega One?"  

"Uhh....What's Vega One?"

"Here....just walk in the door and give this $5-off coupon to anyone wearing an employee name tag and let them get it for you.  You'll never find it on your own."

"Holy Crap!  If it's $5 off, what's the regular price?"

*silence*

But of course I'll buy it for her, mainly because I've never seen a grown woman leap over a tall building in a single bound.  At least that's what the advertising pitch promised.

S

Was Henry Ford a Socialist?

I recently read an interesting piece about Henry Ford, the person who almost singlehandedly put America on wheels and introduced manufacturing to the "moving assembly line".  He was an innovative thinker for sure.  

Consider this:  In 1914 the average daily wage for a blue collar worker (in high-wage Detroit) was $2.34.  Henry Ford was having difficulty with employee turnover at his car factory (300% annually) so he addressed it by raising the wages of (almost all) his workers to $5.00 a day.  In other words, he took money out of his pocket (and his investor's pockets) and put it in his employee's pockets.  WHAT?  Without being coerced by government or a union?  Was he NUTS?   Some might call that a massive transfer of wealth.  I wonder what his Board of Directors had to say about it at the time?  Was Henry a closet Socialist?

But in reality here's what happened:  His Model T sales went from 250,000 cars in 1914 to 472,000 in 1916.  How?  All those now-well-paid employees could afford to buy the cars they were building.  Plus increases in productivity dropped the price of his basic Model T by approx. 50% to $360.  And to keep their employees motivated other automakers had to follow Ford's lead, and most of them (both the workers and the owners) prospered greatly also.  But it was Henry Ford and his company and his family who prospered the most.  Well-to-do before, the Ford's became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams when his workers prospered, too. 

Well....was he a Socialist?*  Was Henry a "re-distributor of wealth" or just a "pump primer"?  Is there a difference?  Could his example have any relevance for us today?  That's a tough one.  A policy to tax the rich like that being carried out today by Socialist French President Francois Hollande (with a top tax rate of 75%!) seems to be more vindictive than based on business logic.  But as Henry Ford demonstrated, a more balanced income distribution across the board can yield huge positives for workers and entrepreneurs alike.  It's all just a numbers game....unless a thriving middle class can afford to buy what entrepreneurs are offering, businesses stagnate or fail.  

It seems to me the trick is walking the fine line between a vindictive Socialist "share the wealth" money grab and finding that ideal "pump priming " point.  Do the ends ever justify the means?  Semantics aside, was Henry Ford's social experiment a good idea or not?

Thoughts anyone?  

S

*Henry was NOT a "card-carrying" Socialist.  In fact he was outspokenly anti-Socialist, anti-Communist, anti-union, and unfortunately anti-Semitic, too.