Now he tells me..................

 

this aged well.................................

The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so.

-William F. Buckley, Jr., from this 1955 mission statement

Martin Gurri........................

 

..................has questions about our government:

Did the government of the United States, conqueror in two world wars and a Cold War, first to place humanity on the moon, really fund transgender comic books in Peru?

yearning for integration................

 

There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great loves, the great creative passions, the great urges to conquer a mountain or a theorem. They can feel like an alien invasion, like the immense hand of some imperative has seized your soul from the outside. But when you look back on them once they have had their way with you, if you are awake enough to your own life and conscious enough of your unconscious, you come to realize that they were not a possession by some external force but dispossessed parts of you yearning for integration. This is why our states of possession are some of the most profound experiences we can have as human beings — they are both revelations and transformations of the self, those eruptions of the psyche that raise new summits of possibility for our creativity and our vitality.

-Maria Popova, from this episode

Don't try....................?

 

                    more fun here

Got it half right............................

 I would love to see a situation where politicians make housing their entire platform. Tear up all of the red tape. Incentive homebuilders to build more homes. Offer first-time homebuyers low mortgage rates they missed out on.

-Ben Carlson, from this post

The affordability problems in our current housing market is being caused by that pesky law of supply and demand.  The supply has been constrained for the past thirteen years for multiple reasons.*  Demand was unleashed seven or eight years ago by absurdly low interest rates and by a generation that ignored the experts that said they would be "urbanized."  Left to their own devices, our kids said "screw the big cities, we want a single-family house with a two-car garage and a yard."  When overheated demand meets constrained supply, you get doubling of prices in a very short time frame—and an affordability problem.  Slowly but surely, supply is picking up—but it will likely take another five years before the supply actually meets the demand.  Be very careful of offering subsidies to buyers in a market like this.  Those subsidies will just end up in the pockets of sellers.  Stoking demand in a tight housing market is a recipe for higher home prices.

If you want to solve the affordability problem, subsidize homebuilders and developers.  They will then do what they always do when incentivized—over build.  Then, and only then, will affordability stand a chance.

*The supply of housing has been constrained by a combination of factors that include, but is not limited to, the following:

    1.  The Great Recession of 2008ish was caused in part by super-heated housing construction.   After the dot.com bubble burst, the construction industry became a major engine for keeping the economy perky.  By 2003 more homes were being built than could be sold to traditional home buyers.  Not wanting to stop the gravy train, politicians decided we should sell those new homes to buyers who could not afford them.  This was cleverly done by fiddling with the requirements for securing a mortgage.  2004-05 was the wild west of mortgage lending.  All you needed to get a loan was to be able to fog a mirror.

    2.   The Great Recession caused multiple defaults on those non-traditional mortgages.  All of a sudden there was a massive supply of available homes and no demand.  Naturally, prices fell.  Homebuilders could not compete with prices of this surplus inventory, so they did the sensible thing and left the industry.

    3.  About the same time all this was going on, our society decided that everyone needed a four-year liberal arts college experience.  We suffered a collective amnesia about the importance of training the next generation of plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, carpenters, roofers, etc.

    4.   In 2003 there were probably 15 home building companies in our community (of about 80,000 folks).  By 2013 there were only three remaining.   

    5.   Guess what happens when there are only a handful of tradespeople in a market that needs a bushelful?   Those trades people, for the first time in memory, had pricing power.  All of a sudden, construction labor prices started rising—quickly.

    6.  The onset of Covid led to the snarling of supply lines and the interruption of the production of building materials.  The just-in-time theory of inventory doesn't work very well when there are disruptions.  Those building product suppliers, for the first time in memory, also had pricing power.  Prices for plywood, concrete, drywall, etc. all shot through the roof.

    7.   Increasing governmental regulations (zoning and NIMBY opposition to change, density restrictions, subdivision regulations, green space requirements, turn lanes and deacceleration lanes, impact fees, sewer/water tap fees, and a myriad of other useful improvements) confronting developers of subdivisions has made the development process more expensive and more time consuming—a tough combination which impacts affordability,

    8.   We should not forget that residential real estate markets are local in nature, and while your results may vary, the affordability problem is a supple and demand problem, and it will  take time to resolve.

Start.......................

 Someone will start with more money than you. Someone will get into a better school. Someone will inherit connections you need to build from scratch. Someone will get picked before you. In other words, you’ll have no problem finding people with a head start.  That’s not the point.

The point is: when you get your opportunity, you make the most of it.

-James Clear

That's the goal.......................

 

Ok, but do I have to.............................

 

................................listen to opera?

uncompromising.............

 

     For these reasons, as much as any, his signature carried stentorian weight when at age eighty-four, wracked by gout, seized by pain, barely able to walk or sit and subsisting on laudanum, a dying Franklin now south to be uncompromising on one matter facing the young republic: slavery.  Here, as in so many other areas, Franklin seemed ahead of his time.  When a South Carolina delegate argued slaves were property, akin to sheep or dogs, Franklin shot back: "there is some difference. . . . Sheep will never make insurrections."

     So, on that grim winter day in 1790, could Franklin's endorsement of the petition once again move the country and make it whole?

     It was not to be.

-Jay Winik, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World: 1788-1800

naturally.......................

 

Contentment is natural wealth.  Luxury is artificial poverty.

-attributed to Socrates

Compounding...............

 

All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits.  I only want to be around people I know I'm going to be around for the rest of my life.  I only want to work on things I know have long-term payout.

-Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant.....................

 

Understand ethical wealth creation is possible.  If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.

Ignore people playing status games.  They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

You're not going to get rich renting out your time.  You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom.

-Naval Ravikant, from this Twitter thread

Fifty years ago................

            Minnie Riperton.................Lovin' You

 

rattle together..............

 

It sure does beat all how prosperity makes a man critical of all who are less prosperous.  Seems like some folks no sooner get two dollars they can rattle together than they start looking down their noses at folks who only have two bits.

-Louis L'Amour, The Courting of Griselda

First, ourselves....................

 

People can change. The only limit on what you can learn in a lifetime is how many years you get. There is not a hard stop on openness or curiosity. Change is difficult but people can change. It is right to ask them to do so because things change when people change.

It is right to ask ourselves to change, too. There are a few things in my life, in my heart, that are non-negotiable. The rest is up for discussion. It is good to require ourselves to be humble and curious and willing to learn. It is good to say things like I don’t know. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m learning. I could have done better. I will do better.

-Annie Mueller

We could use more "detached observers"...

 

There are many types of newspaper editors.  Some are crusading ideologues . . . Some are the opposite: they like power and their proximity to it . . .

     And then there are those who are charmed and amused by the world and delight in charming and amusing others.  They tend to be skeptical of both orthodoxies and heresies, and they are earnest in their desire to seek truth and promote public betterment (as well as sell papers).  There fits Franklin.  He was graced—and afflicted—with the trait so common to journalists, especially ones who have read Swift and Addison once too often, of wanting to participate in the world while also remaining a detached observer.  As a journalist he could step out of scene, even one that passionately engaged him, and comment on it, or on himself, with a droll irony.  The depths of his beliefs were often concealed by his knack for engaging in a knowing wink.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

part of the journey.................

 

     Being a trailblazer often means venturing into the unknown, where the way forward isn't always clear.  You'll encounter dead ends, false starts, and paths that seem promising but ultimately lead nowhere.  This is all part of the journey.  Each setback and wrong turn is not a failure, but a lesson that brings you closer to finding your true path.  The key is to keep moving, keep exploring, and learn from every experience along the way.

-George Raveling, What You're Made For: Powerful Life Lessons from My Career in Sports

All.......................

 

. . . Success isn't about comparing yourself to others or trying to be something you're not.  It's about finding your unique path, your special contribution, and giving it your all.

-George Raveling, What You're Made For: Powerful Life Lessons from My Career in Sports

Opening paragraphs...............

 

Brunetti found that counting silently to four and then again and again allowed him to block out most other thoughts.  It did not obscure his sight, but it was a day rich with the grace and favour of springtime, so as long as he kept his eyes raised about the heads of the people around him, he could study the tops of the cypress trees, even the cloud-dappled sky, and what he saw he liked.  Off in the distance, if only he turned his head a little, he could see the inside of the brick wall and know that beyond it was the tower of San Marco.  The counting was a sort of mental contraction, akin to the way he tightened his shoulders in cold weather in the hope that, by decreasing the area exposed to the cold, he would suffer it less.  Thus, here, exposing less of his mind to what was going on around him might diminish the pain.

-Donna Leon, The Girl of His Dreams: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

A very................................

 

............................uncurmudgeonly list.

Music.....................

 

Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.

-Eric Clapton, The Autobiography

Come on....................

Eric Carmen and the Raspberries....Go All The Way

 

understanding..............

 

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.  A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength.

-Eric Hoffer, True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

arbiter...............................

 

In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.

-Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell), as lifted from here

the very condition...................

 

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning.  Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.

-Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics

One.....................

 

On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache.

-Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Avoiding dysfunction.............

 

“I love being treated like an adult” — such a sad low bar.

via

Ben Franklin, a complicated guy.......

 

For all his simplicity he loved the good life: In Paris alone he had 1,041 bottles of wine in his cellar, nine indoor servants, and he spent freely, on food, on women, on luxuries.  While his circle of friends was among the most fascinating in history—his acquaintances included David Hume, Bishop Berkeley, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Voltaire, Noah Webster, Sir Isaac Newton, Jeremy Bentham, Diderot, and Immanuel Kant, as well as the Enlightenment princess Ekaterina Dashkova of Russia, an intimate of Catherine the Great herself—his colleagues often couldn't stand him.  John Adams thought him "lazy," "insignificant," and devious, not to mention too accommodating to the French.  Arthur Lee, a fellow commissioner to France, despised him, and was convinced that their secretary was a British spy, a charge that Franklin abruptly dismissed (Lee was right). 

-Jay Winik, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World: 1788-1800

uh-oh......................

 

The "adults" aren't going to save you they don't even exist.

-George Mack

death spiral.......................

 

Career advancement required becoming a better bureaucrat, not devising new products or identifying new markets.

-Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

essence..........................

 

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time.  This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

-John Kenneth Galbraith

good.........................

 

The highest good is not to seek to do good but to allow yourself to become it.

-Hierocles

talent............................

 

begin..........................

 

The willingness to figure things out as you go is often the only difference between those who achieve difficult things and those who never begin.

-Farnum Street, from this episode

On the "killer instinct".....

I saw a screenshot of a Reddit post recently from a person who wondered aloud why rich people continue to work, because this person said that the whole point of getting rich was that you wouldn’t have to work anymore. I know one thing for sure—that person is never going to be rich.

-Jared Dillian, from this substack post

Stoop.........................

 

As they were making their way out, they went through a narrow passage and Mather suddenly warned, "Stoop! Stoop!"  Franklin, not understanding the exhortation, bumped his head on a low beam.  As was his wont, Mather turned it into a homily" "Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high.  Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you will miss many hard thumps."

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

On doing good....................

 

According to the common notions, and common practice of mankind, "doing good" implies, whatever removes pain or imparts pleasure. But this is evidently a mistaken view of the subject; for pain is frequently a great blessing, and pleasure is frequently a serious evil. The amputation of a limb, though attended with severe agony, may be the means of saving the patient's life; and that which yields the sweetest gratification to the palate, may speedily terminate in disease and death. The discipline which is administered to a child may issue in his future and permanent advantage; while the indulgence of his wishes may subject him to a perpetuity of suffering.

-Andrew Thompson, from his Preface to Cotton Mather's Essays To Do Good

amending....................

 

Every man upon earth may find in himself something that wants mending; and the work of repentance is to inquire, not only "What we have done?" but also, " What we have to do?" Frequent self-examination is the duty and the prudence of all who would know themselves, or would not lose themselves. The great intention of self-examination is to find out the points wherein we are to "amend our ways."

Cotton Mather, from this essay

design..................

 

He lamented that because he had never outlined a design for how he should conduct himself, his life so far had been somewhat confused.  "Let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and some form of action, that henceforth, I may live my life in all respects like a rational creature."

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life