Why must a great people (and the not-so-great people) forget such simple truths as the one above and cyclically suffer the consequences of their amnesia?
I am certainly no fan of our President but I also recognize that our President has made himself an international laughing-stock; That is a tragedy…..
Cheers to all JERKSTORE “correspondents” !
This blog went live June 19th, 2013….It was a big step for me. The old JERKSTORE email chain allowed me to throw grenades and intrude on my participants. I valued that. Ok, I really enjoyed that. With a blog, I hope the audience will grow. But I can only hope.
I ask forbearance with the initial operation of JERKSTORE. The administration of this venture is all new to me. But I’ll figure it out over time……
I invite old-timers and all newcomers to check-in often to see what’s cooking. I have no idea how this will evolve but it should….And I welcome any suggestions to improve JERKSTORE…..
Charlie Brink
Let the give and take begin
How to cook a jerk?
Shake-up with salty comments,
Peppered with sarcasm,
Smother with spicy rhetoric,
Marinate with red white or drink, if you choose.
Grill with questions,
Poke with sharp-edged opinion,
And preserve with conservatism.
Saveur the thought…
Well now, sounds like a tasty stew.
Just thought I’d call attention to the farce at the Federal Reserve today. I know most store customers prefer to debate politics, but this is the central story of our day and Bernanke and co. are up the creek, trapped by their own insistence that what hasn’t worked yet will work one day, if they just do enough of it. The markets love the printing and this lulls most observers into thinking all is well, but underneath, imbalances are growing out of control, out of the realm of conceivability (is that a word?).
The talk of tapering is laughable; who will buy the bonds at rates anything like today’s given the risks involved? The Fed is monetizing virtually the entire calendar of issuance. Can we realistically expect that they can pull that bid and have anything but a cataclysmic result?
Incidentally, this does feed into a more jerk-store-y theme: without this bid, the largesse conceived of and dispensed by both left and right pols – to constituents from the poor and uninsured to defense contractors – will not be possible without the Fed’s bid for bonds. Taper? Riiiiiiiggggght…
Congratulations, Mr. Brink! The refreshing breezes of Conservatism.
I was reading a biography of Lord Salisbury (first Prime Minister of the 20th century), and this from a speech, circa 1895:
“Industry cannot flow unless capital is confident. Capital will not be confident so long as it fears that Parliament will meddle with it and walk off with its profits.”
Another on government that I can’t recall verbatim and so, paraphrased: “…whatever happens will be for the worse, so it is in our interest to do a little as possible.”
As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.
–H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
I consider myself half-way informed of most things Mencken (translation: I’ve been exposed to an eighth of his writings) and I’ve never read that quote.
Prescient……We, as a nation, have arrived at that point in my opinion.
Indeed, Obama’s ideology represents the narcissism of the common American: an economically illiterate class envy combined with an “Oprah Winfrey” view of the world…..(Now that I think about it, that pretty much describes Barack Obama and his Wife. Wait! That’s right in-line with Mencken’s prediction.)
With regard the the Snowden Affair, I am struck by the lack of leverage the United States has in this matter. A complicated situation to be sure — and a new one, showing how elusive and slippery information and its uses are in the cyber world. Nevertheless, the U.S. is embarassingly without muscle. Why? China snubbing, Russia snubbing, and a hapless Secretary of State saying, “I would urge them (Russia) to live by the standards of the law.” (When has the law ever been an impediment to Russia? Ridiculous). I think the international community has taken the measure of our President and know that he is seriously out of his depth and that he knows next to nothing. Give him a transgender political issue or a racial fracas and he’s your man. Anything else, forget it. This is a very dangerous time for our country. A veritable rudderless ship of state with an obdurate and vacillating amateur at the helm