I can’t wait for the new year.  The most charitable thing I can think to say about this year just past is that at least it wasn’t 2008 or 1932, although the jury may still be out on a future 1932-like performance.  I don’t think 2012 will happen the way 1932 did.  I think the market tickers for the first part of 2012 are going to look the same as all 2011.  But what good news can there be that would overcome the systemic geopolitical and economic issues facing the Western world?   I can think of a few, and the exact things I’m thinking belong in the realm where the ’Frosty Beverage Light’ is always on, not here on the blog; I doubt these things will come to pass in any case and will be rendered moot.  We shall see.

For this evening I’ll count the many blessings granted me this past year and I will wish your 2012 has even more blessings than my 2011 had.

     Is it possible we could be running all the way back full-circle to feudalism (either through or bypassing mercantilism on the journey)? I can’t say I’m fully confident in the direction we’re heading.  It seems like there are too many people who have departed from smart game-playing who keep saying we’ll be able to fix the big problems via gimmicky (nuanced!) trick plays; as though one could get to and win the Super Bowl not with a West Coast offense but by making the fake field goal/punt or reverse handoff their standard tactic.  Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t headed toward some sort of feudal version of the information economy.  Some people, I’m sure, never doubted we’d left it (didn’t Marxists equate industrial capitalists with medieval robber barons? Why robber barons and why not the prior established aristocracy? I digress). 

     In the feudal era, those hardy souls who were mightier than the others of their tribe rose to prominence to become chieftains through the divine right of might.  These gave way over time to landowning aristocrats who swore fealty to those with the divine right of kings.  That age was largely overcome by industrialists wielding the divine right of capital backed by court-enforced contracts.  Not satisfied with material wealth, or not appreciating it, we seem at the dawn of the information age to be also entering the age of the divine right of intellect.  Who will be the gatekeepers and the power-wielders of this age? So far they seem to be folk so shrewd that they’re fooling no one but themselves.

     Good luck plowing the land with your high IQ, fellas!

     It’s hard to believe some folks want to ignore lessons learned over the past 80+ years of military aviation; whether out of misplaced pride in one service, general ignorance, or unreasonable disdain of my service.  The Air Force must be a separate service in order for aerial forces to perform effectively in battle.  Period. 

     The file I developed should be light reading (if you’re into economics)! Enjoy it if you can! I’ll post it in the Pages section.  Unfortunately I was unable to copy the figures (which had been screen shots from graphs generated by an Excel spreadsheet I seem to have left on another computer somewhere).  I’ll try to find them and get them updated. 

     It may sound insane, but think about it:  For the past 12 years, much of our "economic gain" has occurred using credit, or in other words money that wasn’t really ever there to begin with.  So perhaps to a large extent the newly minted reduced-value dollars will simply be replacing money that never existed in the first place.  Maybe we can afford to print a lot for a little while and suffer no net inflation?

     Thoughts?

Back in August, I wrote, "If something is too big and complex to fail, perhaps we should make it smaller and less complex." Now’s probably not the time to throw another wrench in the financial system, but someone, someday is going to have to realize that if something’s too big to fail, it’s also probably too big to bail.

     It may have been a little tougher going for her!

     It’s like Bizarro-Kosovo/Serbia. 

     – Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Kiwanis International Convention in St Louis, MO; 21 Jun 1951.  From Speaking My Mind.  New York:  Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1989; p. 20.