my dear friend wraith:

several years ago, having just begun the process of focusing my music career in the area of jingles i was having qualms. qualms i tells ya. i was stuck in murderous traffic on the 91 freeway, trapped in a faceless and featureless urban limbo between orange county and l.a. i had just finished a lucrative but soul killing session where we were selling some kind of shit to some poor unsuspecting saps, and our catchy, infectious jingle work was to be a large part of the emotional process which would lead the forenamed unsuspecting saps to part with hard earned bux.

try as i might i was absolutely unable to shut down the critic's voice in my head which was castigating me for selling out an uncompromising rocker's view of the music world for money. nothing could shut up the voice in my head screaming "whore!" "whore!"

at some point between diamond bar and chino i gained a small measure of control. i began to chant along with that voice. the little voice would say "whore!" and i'd reply "expensive whore!" then i would remind that stupid little voice that along with being an expensive whore, who could anticipate fucking residuals, my pimp really really really really loved me. he just fucked the other ones in his stable, but me, he loved. i was also able to point out to the voice that i also had a great many johns that could only be called regulars, even by a casual observer.

of course, that also led me to the realization that in this harsh and implacable world i got nothing coming. nothing at all. there have been a great many days when the only sign of god's special favor i can point to is that a couple of times during a busy day i actually have a chance to brush my teeth between blowjobs.

most days, that's enough.

i also feel compelled to remind you of the wise words of San Andreas, patron saint of Californians and innocent bystanders who said:

It's not MY fault.

(ba dum bum)
chick.

Good evening, Minstrel Boy.

As a friend told me in Nashville, "There's a reason they call it a 'rimshot'."

The Dark Wraith usually stays firmly seated in the cheap seats section, these days.

Happy New Year and Happy New Beginnings, Wraith.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
~J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

With a new year comes renewed hope for better: a better economy, better leadership, better opportunities.

Better this and better that.

Certainly, I deserve better, now don't I?

Good evening, Moody Blue.

Needless to say, when I wrote, "Certainly, I deserve better, now don't I?" I was being bitterly sarcastic about my own merit.

I was brought up to avoid like the Plague any hint that my life, in and of itself, has earned me much of anything other than the right to diminish it or enhance it as my free will directs.

It's a hard-core old Protestant thing that fits well with my hard-core old germanic bloodline.

My life has informed me that the old Protestant ethic and its germanic synchronies are pretty much on the money.

Free will is an awful task master; but then again, the alternative is fate.

Of course, the consequence is fate, too.

The Dark Wraith is being obtuse, yes?

Good evening to you, too, Wraith.

Obtuse? You??!

In my view, my dear friend, your merit is well beyond measure. You are golden, and most deserving of many good things in life. You are doing with your life as you wish. You teach, because that is what you want to do, and you are so good at all that you do. You will never know how far and wide your influence and lessons will reach. Avoid what you will, but to me you are a dear treasure and I am better for knowing you and for learning from you. If Fate played any role (and I believe she did), then she is to be praised for that.

Does the Dark Wraith forget that Moody Blue has deep German ancestral roots, too? Which reminds me ... I got a reply last evening to a post at Ancestry.com -- that I entered way back in January 2002 -- about my germanic bloodlines! Nothing like telling me what I had already known. Sheesh! (I felt like saying: "Thanks for finally catching up!" But I behaved myself.)

oui, monsieur le wraith

not your fault

'twas MINE all MINE I me MINE, do you HEAR?! MIIINNNNE !

{sob} [maybe NOW I'll get more trafic. Think?]

There was a time when I could allow myself to believe that I bore some responsibility for events done in my name.

But after so many years of predicting stupid shit, and railing against stupid shit, while watching the shit mountain grow, I'm allowing myself the luxury of living guilt free.

There is nothing we could have done to change the course of our nation. It was set on this path by people we can't touch and can't reason with, that are following a plan that we have had no input on.

I can't blame the folks that were too dumb to know they were buying more house than they could afford. I can't blame the flippers, looking for a fast buck. The bankers knew all along that these people were there, and they knew what would happen if they gave them liars loans.

The bankers also knew all along that they would get bailed out, and they would still be able to foreclose and keep the properties. I figured this out years ago, and wrote about it often. It was the only explanation.

After all, stupid people don't screw up, over and over, and each time fall into a bigger pile of money. Savvy business people and crooks do this. Or maybe I'm splitting hairs? but the point is, it's not a screwup if you get what you want. It's just a pawn's sacrifice to win the game.

There will be no recovery next year. There will be no recovery the year after that. In a few years, most of the public will have accepted that the American Dream was executed on Bush's watch. Executed and tossed into the reservoir to rot.

And I need to remember this. I have a lot of gardening to do. I need motivation. I'll be glad later.

Good evening, Mr Wraith.

Goodness! but that warm glow from having the high score on the last quiz has worn off. I am confused. Befuddled.

You can see here:
http://mises.org/story/3263
Well, the fellow seems to me to be about half right. Usually the first half of a paragraph. Then he can't help but go bonkers.
Bonkers is so much a part of him, he really can't help himself. He holds back as long as he can, long enough to make one coherent, sensible statement. And after that, pure bonkers.

I have to wonder if inflation actually directs investment, and to what extent.

Then I see this:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/12/spending-and-tax-multipliers.html
Now, I'm no Harvard professor or anything, but I've read the Dark Wraith's website for a time now.
And I can't help but think that, if I actually were a Harvard professor and all, I would at least like to try not to do anything too stupid. No guarantees, mind you; but I would at least try.

This guy doesn't even try.

Pardon me if I'm wrong here, but in the terms that I know and understand, this fellow constructs a total belief system founded in logical fallacy (hasty generalization). Everything is about taxes this and taxes that, but never the consideration that all taxes are not created equal.

Wish I could be paid that well to be that dumb.
I would go for it too.
I would sit up and practice at night, just trying to get a bit dumber for the next day. Nose to the grindstone, that's for me.

Then I see this:
http://www.cbpp.org/11-27-01tax.htm
These people seem rather cogent.

Things have started to sink in a bit, and I can see that where Reagan cheated the people is pretty much in the same way that JFK screwed everyone, but subtly different.
I need to make a few more CDs of those lectures for those long drives.

Good evening again, Mr Wraith.

I was thinking about this, and it looks to me like von Mises' greatest failure was that in he failed to realize that sustainability is a rational view.

It seems similar in a way to Greenspan's mea culpa before Congress, that it had never been taken into account in any of the models that, perhaps, a person entrusted with large amounts of wealth might provide more for their own interests rather than the interests of the business entity which they represent.
That 'Greed is good' mantra doesn't quite play so well when you're holding a pillow over Grandma's face in her sleep....
It's like watching a numbers wizard suddenly be reminded of subtraction.
"Oh, do you mean you can take away x? How novel!"
Thus, as praxology, economics has failed us.
Our wise men are woeful dunces.

Now I lost my train of thought....

All this time I thought what was happening to the economy was a feature, not a bug, of the "Contract on Amerika" Newt sold everybody 15 years ago.

You know, it's the natural consequence of "Morning in Amerika": total economic eclipse except for those with the Right Stuff.

Certainly the Wraith can not take credit for such farsighted innovation.

To everyone here, may this coming year bring you peace and prosperi...uh, is this a bad time? I can come back later if you...

What's even funnier is that his devoted listening audience will quickly pick up this meme,

Oh yeah, a regular laugh riot, Alice. You are right, though; The flailing and arm-waving to defend this trash is Gold, baby.

I personally think Eastwood's line from "Unforgiven" sums it up accurately: "Deservin's got nothin' to do with it." We get handed what we get handed; that's the fate part. Then we choose what to do with it. There's your free will.

I'm really not sure why you are beating yourself up for not stopping the continued growth of Empire (which has been a process ongoing from before your birth, or mine). The only actions you could have taken besides the ones you did would have led only to your arrest, or worse, which would have been to no one's benefit.

What's even funnier is that his devoted listening audience will quickly pick up this meme,

Does anyone else recall the little pre-9/11 recession we had when Bush first took office that was loudly proclaimed by the repubs to be Clinton's? I can't figure out why these folks heads don't explode from the sheer inconsistancy of their statements. (and yes, that one couldn't be blamed on Bush because he hadn't been around long enough to do much substantial, except maybe by his mere existance bring the thing about. But if that one was Clinton's, despite IIRC the beginning happening after he left office, then this one logically cannot be anything but Bush's)

Nope, don't expect logic or consistancy from republican apologists, I really don't, but I have to wonder if there's a link between the rise in type 2 diabetes (poor sugar control leads to memory problems), the gutting of available affordable healthcare, jobs with hours and pay sufficient to allow folks to eat real food, not sugary junk grabbed on the way to work and the ability of the republican machine to flip-flop and have no one seem to recall they are saying or doing the exact opposite of what was said or done last week, let alone 8 years ago? Is part of the massive conspiracy to destroy America a conscious effort to destroy all long-term memory capacity? NCLB has destroyed critical thinking as a classroom skill, lower and lower real wages and a service economy where you are likely to eat out much more frequently has destroyed the family dinner, cutting corporate costs and investing in overpriced CEO's has destroyed a lot of the benefits that used to come with having a decent job. We work longer and harder, destroying the leisure to actually look at the news in a thinking mode.

Or maybe they just put something in the water :)

So for our next poll, maybe we can ask if the architects of our present mess did this with full malice and foresight, wanting a world in which only the elite 5% have either brains or the leisure to use them, or whether simple greed led them to the serendipidous (for the elite) world we find ourselves in? I could argue either way.

(BTW-please post us some before and after photos...)