How SARS-Cov-2 Works

Building out my five earlier posts, one mistake is framing as influenza. SARS-Cov-2 is a coronavirus. Those little arms aren’t sexual selection. They aren’t cute. They hold onto glycan. My frame bases on two facts, glycan and bats.

If you are into rage, rage pleases some people, consider all the researchers staring into the abyss, making their tiny incremental gains in knowledge and technique. They were reserving their lab equipment, writing their grant proposals, studying HIV, Ebola, H1N1, etc. The discovery they were converging on was the relation between glycan and protein along the cell wall. This molecular process is complex and difficult to discern. Glycan is just as complex as protein. The research is cancelled. Government gave the money for all those projects to drug companies.

Drug companies are drug companies. They are perfecting their manufacturing process to be ready for the vaccine. They are doing clinical trials for various expensive cocktails of treatments. If something doesn’t work, they combine it with something else. They do not stare into the abyss and try to figure out what question to ask. I sometimes encounter a desperate research article trying to show how understanding the interaction between glycan and protein is essential to this problem. Those articles don’t come from drug companies. Recently Chinese spies were trying to steal drug company research. They must be communists. I doubt there is anything worth stealing.

Coronavirus has evolved to shield itself with glycan from the immune system. You don’t want our immune system to attack our own glycan. The various vaccines predicate on protein interaction. That is not how coronavirus works. SARS-Cov-2 has evolved in bats to have long arms and a very thick shroud of glycan, so that no protein is exposed.

A study, Shielding and Beyond: The Roles of Glycans in SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein, was published on bioRxiv.org June 12, 2020, gives a computer model of the heads extending above the glycan.  It doesn’t explain what triggers the extension of the heads. If a virus is inactive, that is its heads haven’t popped, our white blood cells recognize foreign glycan and consume it. How do the heads pop?  SARS-Cov-2 leaves bats as fecal and saliva aerosol. I think SARS-Cov-2 has a molecular memory from bats of vibration and bile. Bats shriek to echolocate. This might explain Manhattan. Manhattan hum raises the sound level.

Once the heads have popped, SARS-Cov-2 may encounter one of our other cells before it encounters a white blood cell and we are infected. Those viruses shroud in our own glycan, ignored by our immune response. Eventually the liver should clean them out as old glycan. Notice that this in no way is similar to other immune response. If the virus encounters or attracts a cell that consumes the viral glycan, it then will infect that cell. If the infected cell is local, we ignore its viral load. If it is foreign, there are many foreign cells within us; our immune system will recognize foreign glycan and coagulation may be extreme.

As with most coronavirus, we usually encounter this infection and ignore it. Covid19 may have stronger latency. I have noticed Covid-head, a certain dullness and irrationality.

If we vaccinate someone, we increase the viral response. The viral response will not be sufficient to interdict a cloaked virus. The white blood cells were already doing their function whenever they encounter a coronavirus. It is a matter of which cell they encounter first. Increasing immune response is dangerous. Usually the white blood cells recognize viral particles, but they cannot and should not recognize their own shrouded viral particles.  Infected then subject to vibration, would pop the heads and could be dire.  

There was a protocol that the first test is on the researcher.  I beseech you. Abandon the philosopher’s stone, the vaccine; pursue science.

Why haven’t owls eaten all the bats?

Take reported sick times 10 divided by world’s population I get 2.3%. United States is 14%. Divide US population by 10 apply the crude mortality rate of 6% to the sick and I get 2 million dead. Ten is the current true sick ratio. One to seven, in the US, that you are infected.

 

Further Covid19 Speculation

If this crowd had been in charge during Ebola, we would all be dead. If it were Clinton elected, she would be tearfully tragically sorry for the hundreds of dead in New York. If, by some miracle, the Golden Child had a third term, they would fiercely pillory him for the billions he had wasted in China. If the Federal government had existed during the bubonic plague, they would hand out rats.

I doubt you develop immunity to Covid19 in the normal sense. This doesn’t demand that it persist forever. If you are not reinfected it may be that over some time your liver will recognize large, elderly glycan balls and dispose of them all.

Perhaps Covid19 is advantageous in bats. It avoids immune response and may target foreign invaders. This is not ridiculous there are anticancer viral therapies. Bats don’t get cancer. This coronavirus may coevolve with future human generations. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get it. 

In a few years, after the 100 million have died in the world, we will develop a social tolerance for this new disease. People will go on retreats or to spas and periodically rid themselves of it. Screaming, singing, farting, religious events and concerts will be passé.

Our sense of privacy has to change. Bear in mind that every police agency has intelligence coordination and data is forever. Somehow, we have to make a distinction between courts, health, police, marketing and surveillance.

Covid19 Observations

The Wuhan bat lady recently got out of jail. Her first speech was to the effect:

-You ain’t seen nothing yet.

See why they jailed her. Her group’s first new paper nailed it down that Sars-Cov-2 comes from bats. They needed to put that marker down. Extrapolating from that information, bats are healthy. They have a protein rich diet. Bats have plenty of vitamin D. They are active. There are no fat bats. Covid19 is all up in bats. Just because something is logical, does not make it so.

In desperation, I smoked a cigar in the park. I was uncomfortable after that. The catch in my throat declined, but now it’s back. Is there any correlation to tonsillectomy?

Coronavirus arms hang onto their glycan coat. Glycan is encoded. Your body can detect foreign glycan. So when a coronavirus from someone else gets in you, your body says:

-Not my glycan.

The white blood cell or whatever chomps it down. Your immune system isn’t notified. It’s just another foreign invader:

-Nothing to see here. Move along.

Covid19 is different. Maybe it holds more glycan or holds its coat tighter. Covid19 had to survive in bats.

Bats echo locate. Maybe if someone is yelling, singing, or fecal aerosol it disturbs the coat enough to be infectious. Depending on the state of its coat, your immune history, frequency and severity it infects you. Once that happens it should have your glycan coat and your immune system is none the wiser, perhaps some lassitude or sterility but who notices?

I’m speculating that to fire things off the virus has to attack a foreign body that has residence in you. Those new viruses would lack the correct glycan encoding to shield them and you will be sick. When things get too fierce you choke on your coagulation. Maybe they should investigate dialysis.

South Korean researchers have contended that people shed “dead viruses” as different from infectious ones. I don’t know what dead virus means. The researchers are expressing their frustration that once people have been sick they continue to shed virus but no longer seem infectious. Unless those people sing, yell, spray fecal matter or are otherwise intimate, depending on the immune capability of their associate, they may not infect.

The virus persists in bats. Why would it behave differently in us?

I haven’t heard any mention of thoracentesis.

Worldometer has an article making use of New York data, which comes to 1.5% infection mortality rate. I tried to do something like it with Spain in my previous post and got 2%. Point being, you can be dumb as you want to be, and still get close. Even my first ignorant post was close. Worldometer is properly critical of the measure they call crude mortality rate. I think we should still propagate CMR as it identifies obvious issues of state reporting.

-Georgia, what kind of quack killing floor are you running?

-Illinois, are you missing deaths or false positives?

You are allowed to read and you are allowed to calculate.

There Will Be No Covid19 Vaccine

The virus spikes hold on to glycan. Glycan, sugar molecules, cover everything. Glycan is how all cells interact. Sars-Cov-2 has evolved in bats to conceal itself with glycan from your body. Search on glycan coat Sars-Cov-2 and you will find all these research articles, trying not to be snarky, not wanting to bust rice bowls, explaining the difficulty. You would think they would be more explicit in these circumstances.

Why are we getting immune reaction? How about the virus infecting foreign bodies, those viruses lack the correct coat and activate immune response? We don’t know that immune response means immunity.

We finally have some data as to morbidity. We don’t have exposure or infection but of cases resolved 20% die. A million sick means 200,000 will die. Easy bar bet, if the bars were open. 80% remission is still opportunity for delusion and quackery.

Everyone divides dead by sick. I have taken this measure as medical effectiveness. It gives a sense of testing and ER load. To get morbidity look at cases resolved. You need the recovered measure. Recovered may need air quotes. The virus is persistent. Yet those who have been sick do not relapse or infect. So sum the recovered and dead then use that number to divide the dead and you get morbidity.

In Spain they appear to have a reliable LA Roche blood test and they are getting 5% exposure, good social distancing. Five% of population gives 2,340,000. Divide cases by exposed gives around 10% for serious infection.

Multiply current U.S. cases by 10 and we have 15 million exposed that is we expect antibodies. Divide by US population and we have 4.5% exposed. Return to my ridiculously wrong assumptions in the two earlier blog entries, which weren’t very different on results. This time we will take 70% of US population for exposed, some drivel about immunity. Times 10% serious infection, times 20% morbidity, I’m getting over four million dead.

Morbidity rates vary. US-23%, NY-40%, IL-41%, GA-84%, some states have zero recovered. Since it ties to reopening, reporting is suspect. States may not realize that their poor reporting inflates their morbidity, another good reason to emphasize morbidity.

The real point is if you don’t feed the fire, it should go out. As I pointed out earlier, hope it goes out before it mutates and/or the secondary infections take hold. We haven’t seen white nose yet. It might mutate in dogs.

Covid19 Facts

Distance is it. Distance is all we have. The more we play with it, the longer it takes. Too long and the virus twitches. I hate to say mutate, sounds like a comic book. The meaningful virus change is to attack a different population segment. This sounds likely, I don’t know when, but that is how nature works. Even without Covid19 changing, once the herd is sickened, opportunistic infections increase.

There will be no vaccine. The glib, confident, hardworking, energetic, smart people who get the money are not the ones who make discoveries. The Ebola people, with the hot hand since they actually created a successful vaccine, took decades, got their funding cut. The one lab in the world that knows anything, in Wuhan, got their funding cut and their principles are in jail. The HIV people who have been staring into the abyss and making their incremental discoveries got their funding cut.

They are trying to find the coconut chocolate in the sampler. A good analogy because the virus is sugar coated. If these cookbook hamsters know what they are doing or are extremely lucky, they may find a unique identifier. Bat immune systems have been trying forever. Bats are fragile densely packed animals; their immune systems are ferocious.

The immunity has to be lasting. Rule out anyone announcing immediate promising results.

Statistics must be mandatory and qualifying in physicians’ curriculum.

            Sulfur molasses has a terrible smell

            Whatever I had, it would make me get well

            Sulfur molasses, the old country style

            Together with goose grease and turpentine oil

If you don’t have a study with a control group, you don’t have anything. Early announcement proves bias. Most people get better. We don’t know that alcohol is a factor. How can a scientist tout vitamin D without a study? Is HIV a risk factor? Do asthmatics and aids shelter more aggressively? If there is a correlation with melanin, examine it not debate it.

Refusing to experiment on people means that you experiment on the entire population. Some of the poor consequences may be due to treatment. Don’t just do something stand there. Is anyone checking the numbers?

The shame of this stupidity is that it distracts from distancing. Take your hope and the Blue Angels and put them somewhere uncomfortable. 

Covid19 Speculation

I am not an authority.  Anyone who does speak with authority on this subject is lying. It is too new. The federal government just released a projection of 200,000 deaths. This is close to my own calculation. Given the federal governments history of guidance and information, perhaps I’m wrong. I’m getting the same order of magnitude without an engineering degree. The federal government did not show its work.

Presumptuous to call this a model, start with a 330,000,000 population in the United States. How many people will be exposed?  I am impressed with social distancing. Even if only half the states are sheltering in place, those states seem sincere. In Illinois, Pritzker has been good. It is difficult to make decisions with insufficient information. I doubt I would have his courage. Let’s say half the population becomes exposed.  This gives 165 million.

Of those exposed how many become infected?

 I’m hesitant to discuss the virus structure. My impression is that immune response is against the spike rather than the package within the cell. Once the package enters your cell, that cell is a goner. Neither your immune response nor the spike signature is consistent. I have little hope for vaccine, particularly now that Ebola research funding has been cancelled. Ebola vaccine took two decades to accomplish. The most promising research has been suppressed and the plug and chuggers don’t seem to understand the difficulty.

We know that severity and frequency of infection overwhelms immunity. This suggests a dialogue between your immune response and the spike signature. There is variation in immune response across generations, gender and locale. This variation would be determined by your immune history. If you have recovered with immunity, you should still use protective equipment when you reenter the fray. Conversely it is unlikely that a whiff will get you.

A simple estimate of infection is to take the number of tests against the reported sick. This has tremendous variance. Today I got near 20%. Whenever you need a WAG, 20% is as good as any. An engineer named Thomas Puyeo published Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now on medium.com. He argues based on illness duration that he can determine the true sick number from deaths. He gives a rule of thumb of 800 times deaths gives the true sick rate. Working backwards maybe you can get 16% for infected to those exposed.

Take 20% of 165 million and you get 33 million sick. 16% gives 26,400,000.

Take 1% of either number to get the dead.  I hope the federal government’s difference has more than a quibble of 16 to 20%. In either case you now have a sense of the order of magnitude and the underlying logic.

The 1% is a ratio of sick to dead. This has become the measure of health care effectiveness. It means we are doing enough testing and keeping enough people on ventilators to hover around 1%. Currently we are doing 2% so double the previous death estimates.

Take my bare bones, optimistic, easy to do calculation against world population of 7.8 billion gives 78 million dead.

Worst case estimate for the US, take 80% exposed, 20% infected and 5% dead gives 2,640,000 dead. That really owns the libs.

The even worst case is the virus mutating, nextstrain.org is sampling the variety. If the virus twitches more fatal it will burn out quickly, less fatal is less fatal. The fear is different population segments. We need testing outside the impact group and mapping of those strains. The Kansas 1918 virus had a W distribution. It was going down, then hit a different population segment and shot up, declined and shot up again. Expect nature to seek opportunity. Multiply worst case by three.

8 million dead raises the issue of social disruption. I don’t foresee extreme piercing, grunge and battle wagons. We may have dynasty failure, increased social mobility and innovation. Human population increases when stressed. The Thanos snap fails. Prosperity constrains human population. We will see population break the 10 billion mark, which was the hoped for limit.

More likely that distancing works. It is amazing how well people respond once they have information.  Testing gives people better information to base their behavior on. Paid days off gives them greater ability to act on that information.  Testing, paid days off and distancing is the only way to deal with the virus. Everything else is noise. It may have benefits but it doesn’t stop the virus. Distancing is the difference between thousands and millions.

There are no treatments. If they are doing a trial it is not an obvious treatment. Until they can empty a ward they don’t have a treatment. It is insulting to the doctors and nurses to imply that they enjoy their aching feet and are denying you a treatment. There is a 95% to 99% remission rate. This means that there will be all sorts of treatment success stories. You tried something and got better. China’s belief system is based on trying all sorts of treatments. They are total cowboys on this and they are not terrified of legal liability. If there was such a thing, they would have found it.

When I was a kid, mom broke the fever with whiskey. I knew someone who got drunk and walked in the cold, it worked for him. Mustard plaster, vapor rub, you can see why doctors hate patients. If you must try things, at least do something different. I haven’t seen any mention of HGH or gamma globulin.  Just because you got better, doesn’t mean it worked.

Anecdotally, flu therapies may aggravate Covid19. More doctors get sick. I thought this was because of greater exposure. Doctors are notorious for self-medicating.

Interest rates, Federal Reserve shenanigans, subsidies, none of these things have anything to do with the virus. I would starve rather than give Boeing money.

Some people are behaving foolishly. It occurs to me that this may be an effect of the virus. Toxoplasmosis and rabies influence behavior. Perhaps Covid19 encourages foolhardy antics and speech. Do these behaviors correlate with infection? It will be difficult to prove after the fact.

The grocery store demonstrates how dependent we were on restaurants. I guess everyone was dropping it at work or at the bar. It’s sad we only know how to cook pasta. It is becoming obvious that work is just an excuse to get away from the family.

There is a good paper on the origin of Covid19 The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Nature.com.  You can tell they know what they are talking about because they call it SARS-COV-2. They tell us that this one isn’t something they would have whomped up, which sounds true. There isn’t enough work done to conclusively rule out someone’s idiot child but their take is that it gestated in people. This is in line with patient zero catching it in a toilet.  There is criticism of China’s slow initial response. Everyone but Merkel, the most beautiful woman in the world, has been guilty of that. Once the Central Committee realized it attacked elderly men, they changed course. The CDC is doing everything in its power to stop and frustrate testing. Everyone, except Merkel, was more scared of panic than virus. There were higher pneumonia deaths before people were aware of the virus.

A Chinese who was sick of our arrogant defamation gave it back by pointing out that we had a military athletic team in the area. The Kansas flu was passed from our troops so not entirely nonsense. What was surprising was our umbrage, seemed to touch a nerve, suspicious. Given our suppression of testing we have no right to accuse.

I am so encouraged that we took so many good lessons from HIV. Not. At least let us have new respect for the phrase:

-I don’t know.

Bait

The most frightening thing I have ever seen is the Gulf of Mexico from space.  It is circular.  A circle is a crater.

*-*

The hunter waited. A terrifying brilliant ferocious huge man eating tiger, he chuckled, very quietly of course.  It was just another job.  Once it is a money matter, it becomes so simple.  The goat was bleating plaintively on its’ tether.  All as it should be.  He cradled the rifle in his arms thinking about how he would spend the money and with whom he would spend it. He startled, looked at the goat, it was still there.  What was wrong?  The goat was sitting.  It was quiet.  Too late, the hunter realized the goat was staring at him. His position revealed, he felt the tiger’s breath.

*-*

One place to look for aliens is dust. Large successful alien civilizations left a lot of trash, at least at some periods of their development. The difficulty is that chemists usually start by burning or dissolving their samples. Finding a Teflon molecule in moon dust or an arctic ice column seems definitive. Just as we don’t yet have the technology to understand advanced communication, we probably won’t recognize alien detritus. When we do, it will seem obvious even common.

*-*

-People have seen flying saucers.

-People have seen the Virgin Mary.

-That’s not real.

-More people have seen the Virgin Mary than have seen flying saucers.

-It’s not the same.

-The people who see the Virgin Mary sneer at the people who see flying saucers.  The people who see flying saucers sneer at the people who see the Virgin Mary.  If you see both you’re a Mormon.  Just because people see something, doesn’t make it so.

-Why would they make it up?

-Loss of faith; people want to believe in something.

-What about the aircraft carrier visits?

-Excellent example, here we are waving nuclear reactors over the ocean. Why would we prefer a visitation over an admission of ignorance of the physics?

-You think it’s all made up.

-That’s the most likely explanation.  It’s very unlikely that someone came all the way from Andromeda just to drain somebody’s sinuses. It’s an order of magnitude more likely that they are from the neighborhood.

-Where?

-Atlantis, it’s not likely. However, a higher level of primate is certainly more probable than aliens.

-Wouldn’t we know?

-Why would they tell us?

-Why would they let us live?

-Good point.  Primates are sometimes kind to each other, much less to other primate species.  They could be that different I suppose.  It’s more likely some small difference that gives them a big advantage.  Maybe they don’t have our resistance to disease.  Maybe they are moving forward in time until we wipe ourselves out. If it’s just us and them, why are we still here?

-So much for that theory.

-If it’s just us and them, they wouldn’t keep us around.

-Why would they otherwise?

-Bait.

*-*

He stared at the blue planet.  Other species might sneer at the windows in their craft, at his species sense of wonder, now the windows were essential to their plan.  That planet had once been their home.  Then they met the Federation.  They had prospered with the Federation, assured themselves some measure of perpetuity, now it was time to pay their dues.

For thousands of years they had groomed the planet, allowed that other primate species, humans to have it.  It was horrifying to watch.  They had protected them from intrusion, waiting for this moment.  Now the enemy was approaching, a ghastly foe that enslaved the universe.

 

Their own craft was equipped with manual air systems, not the slightest electronic indication.  They waited for the enemy to materialize from their jump gates.  First the scouts came, next would come the huge behemoth ships.  Each jump gate had its own planet. After their experience in an earlier engagement the enemy made its jumps in two large waves.

 

The plan was after the scout wave, to power up and fire as one.  The destruction of such a huge ship in a jump gate would devastate its’ host planet.  Without their gates, the enemy would be helpless and the Federation could finally drive this scourge back into the darkness.

 

In the distance, they could see the haze that indicated the arrival of the behemoth enemy ships.  He stared at the planet and wondered if it would survive.  There were bright red lights shining from the planet.  He squinted. As he looked around, he gasped.  Each of their ships was glowing red.  The humans were shining lasers at their ships.

-Those bastards lit us up!

He screamed.

Bear Act

There is no recording of this. There was no videotape. It was Chicago.

I think I was four years old, which would put this at 1956. A group of kids from the Neighborhood Club, that was the name, went to be on television. I had never seen a television.  Lee Phillips was the producer. There was a bear act. The trainer grabbed me out of the group of kids to ride behind the bear on a scooter.

The bear had silver curly hair. I didn’t smell anything. I held onto the big massive wall of curly hair. There were extremely bright lights. I squinted at the cameras and looked away. I wondered what the cameras were. I waved to the kids. Then the dog showed up. The dog perched its paws on my shoulders while we rode around in a circle. The dog’s big head was next to mine; I could smell the dog.  I didn’t know from bears or scooters, but I was afraid of dogs.  Perhaps the bear was affected by my fear because it roared, which also startled me. I had a feeling like:

-uh oh

The trainer called the dog off. The dog was like:

-What? I’m working here.

The trainer took me off the scooter.  I went back to the kids. One of the kids said:

-You rode behind the bear!

I nodded. I felt I had let down the act. Later I saw the trainer smoking and he glanced at me.

We got to all run into a cave and each get a present. I opened mine and got a dolly. A girl got a Tommy gun style squirt gun. Lee Phillips made us switch.

BlogSpot Sucks

BlogSpot just created a beta software update for statistics. BlogSpot used to pollute my view count with my own visits.  It offered an option to turn that off but then it didn’t keep it clicked. Why would someone want to count their own visits? Now it throws me into Analytics which seems overly concerned with Google users.

I used to be on Open Salon.  When that closed I chose BlogSpot believing there would be permanence. It was tedious cutting and pasting my entries. Who thought there would be so many? I lost my dates and comments. You would think that there could be an easier transition. That may be working now.

Why is it so difficult to have an index or table of contents?

I had AdSense on Open Salon. BlogSpot sent me over to AdSense with a new ID which AdSense rejected. I am now trapped in a perpetual user ID embrace from which there is no release. Please don’t send any scripted solutions unless you have tried them yourself.  AdSense sucks as well. You might think AdSense and BlogSpot had better coordination.

Amazon EBook sucks. Why is XML proficiency a requirement for publishing an EBook with any features?  Why doesn’t Amazon have its’ own editor so that I can structure the book within the reader the way it should be rather than down and up loading it over and over? This reminds me of TurboTax preventing free self-filing.  TurboTax sucks. Hello Amazon! If there is a self-publishing industry to create EBooks, you are doing it wrong.

Why isn’t there a common directory for voicemail, text and email? How many decades now?

These companies should require that their employees actually use their products.    

Materialist Mary Poppins

The fabulous nature announces a suspect narrator. The constant revision screams repression and avoidance. Let us make use of our understanding of children and history.

Servant was an honorable and necessary profession. It was impossible to run a household without servants, there was too much to do. The wealthy understood this and were raised in these relationships, the middle class not so much. Working in a middle class household, in this case the Banks, subject to even greater pettiness and viciousness could be horrific.

The Banks children, observing the dynamic of the household, knew they could be abusive to servants. They took their sense of neglect and entitlement out on their nannies. “Came with the wind” meant that Mary Poppins came without reference, which was unheard of. The Banks obviously had no concern for their children. Confronted with an impossible situation, Mary Poppins resorted to drugging the children with laudanum, an opiate solution that was commonly available. Laudanum is bitter, thus the “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”. Laudanum was the Ibuprofen of its day, used for every ailment. It is not until the last few modern decades that drugging children for behavior is appropriate.

Managing children’s dosage is difficult. The children hallucinated. At least Mary Poppins took the children outside for recreation. There she had sport with her friends and acquaintances.  There is interest in her view of empire and hierarchy and how she informed and imprinted the children. The great scandal was her friendship with Bert the match man. Women did not have informal relationships with men. Mary Poppins had several such friendships and she entertained Bert.

The United States class structure is a three by three grid, upper middle and lower both ways. England is four by four, with a government column and a proper lumpen underclass row. Mary Poppins is an upper lumpen.

Did Mary Poppins turn the children loose at Mr. Banks place of employment costing him his job? It isn’t clear what he had done to upset her. Her depiction is powerful, but this is suspect. Her insecurity may have led to her terse and stolid demeanor, a common behavior of servants and subordinates.  Mary Poppins then leaves as she came “with the wind” and without a reference. Lack of a reference meant little prospect for employment. The children are happy that their father has time for them and they fly a kite.

Worst President

1. Kennedy nearly blew up the world. Eisenhower had been waving the bomb around but now there was reprisal. Berlin, Bay of Pigs, Missile Crisis, Assassination, it was called brinkmanship.
2. Reagan was just running his mouth, but middle management on both sides was listening. Brave Petrov, Able Archer, Fleetex, KAL 007, Reagan calmed down after he was shot. Both Irishmen believed they had a special relationship with the Soviet Union.
3. Jefferson unleashed Napoleon on Europe. The only real consequence of the Louisiana Purchase was funding Napoleon. Jefferson said he expected Napoleon to attack the British, but the French direction was clear after the Seven Years’ War.   Napoleon was a general not an admiral. Dropping guns in Haiti, backstabbing Washington on the loan, stopping the tobacco deal, don’t say it turned out for the best. We don’t know what would have happened. Jefferson was slime.
4. Wilson’s intervention in World War I led to World War II.
5. Teddy Roosevelt was our most popular president. Roosevelt picked the next two presidents. He campaigned for our World War I intervention in support of the British. Roosevelt’s island by island suppression of the Philippines was an example to Japan. Japan and Germany were United States wannabes.
6. Eisenhower was a great general. His selection from the ranks as head of the European theater was a miracle. Unfortunately Eisenhower was a great general. Countless successful interventions of small forces, guns and money throughout the world murdered the idealists and frustrated sovereignty leading to disaster that Eisenhower was no longer around to manage.  He was embarrassed in Indonesia. Eisenhower put out the fires without clearing the underbrush. The SOCOM fantasy persists to this day.
7. Jackson, westward expansion and the associated atrocities seem inevitable. But Jackson left us with no shred of decency or self-respect.   There was also his financial manipulation in support of the overseas Dutch. Jackson and Van Buren established the Democratic Party which eventually gave us the Civil War.
8. Nixon, Cambodia will suffice.
9. Bush Jr. the MBA chump who fell for Bin-Laden’s provocation. Lead the US out of prosperity and into ruin.
10. Tyler joined the Confederacy.
11. Washington started the Seven Years War. He skimmed the French funds meant for his starving troops. He did keep the British occupied until France could win the Revolution. Without the benefit of gunpowder. If you don’t believe the British could have won, let me refer you to India, China and South Africa. Fortunately the British didn’t send the bad boy who would have dropped guns in the South and burned granaries in the North. Washington’s great mistake as president was sending Jefferson to France. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Jefferson’s job in France was to get the tobacco deal; instead he went to the other side. Jefferson was probably tipped by the Turks. Without the tobacco deal we had Shay’s rebellion. When it was clear that the French weren’t giving the loan in part because of Washington’s even handed policy, Washington was told to grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out.
12. Don John is the piñata for the ecological disaster.
13. Buchanan, pro slavery president just before the Civil War.
14. Andrew Johnson obstructed Reconstruction.
15. Lyndon Johnson got the China Lobby to support his social programs in exchange for the Vietnam War.  Johnson is the reason people are terrified of a socialist president. Obama holds him up as the example of change without consensus. And Indonesia.
16. John Adams got the loan from the Dutch and sold out to the British, but his fundamental function was to hold off Jefferson. Only managed one term.
17. Hoover tightened up standards and enforced prohibition before he was elected president; disrupting business arrangements which helped bring on the Depression. Hoover and his cronies supported the Germans. In Hoover’s case because he had worked for the British.
18. Fillmore opened up Japan. That worked out well.
19. Cleveland was such a stinker.  The death knell of reconstruction.
20. James Monroe supported Jefferson.

Best President

1. Franklin Roosevelt, you may question his character and policies, but Roosevelt led us through the Great Depression and the Second World War. His appointment of George C. Marshal was great. As was Henry Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt.
2. Lincoln won the election of 1864. McClellan would have been victory for the South.
3. Ford, modern presidents have the advantage of greater disaster and recovery. I have a soft spot for goodhearted insider conservatives. We could have had John Connally.
4. James Madison wrote the Constitution. Conciliated with Britain. We could have lost the war of 1812. Held on to Maine. Wasn’t named Jimmy.
5. Carter, insufferable sanctimony worsened by being right. Carter creeps up in the rankings. I see why Rosalyn beats him.
6. Truman, someone finally fired McArthur. Held off Dewey.
7. Bush Sr. Adam Smith bemoans the constant cycle of wastrels and saviors in politics. Republicans hold this as their fundamental tenet, the Santa Claus Presidency and opposition to socialism. Bush Sr. was the statesman who lied and saved the Republic. Clinton was smart enough to keep his policies. I would rate Bush Sr. higher except hijacking Carter’s Iran operation in support of Reagan. Also participating in the shooting of two other presidents.
8. Obama should also rate higher. His legacy will forever be marred by his successor.  The Department of Justice did not prevent Republicans from fixing the election.
9. John Quincy Adams failed to hold off Jackson, always right, never enough.

There are a number of dynasty, bookend, adversary and conjoined presidents. Did we always elect the wrong one? The various scandals look quaint. Rights usually mean right to have slaves or suppress unions. Empire is judged by atrocity. I have a new respect for meh presidents, who didn’t embarrass us, get caught, or mess up.

Damn You, Ken Burns

Orange you ugly

Orange you silly

Orange you fat.

Orange you goofy

Orange you stupid

Where’s my hat?

Orange you hateful

Orange you dummy

I can see

Orange you made

A fool of me

Beto you too thin

Booker you’re too poor

Kamela you’re too short

Warren is a bore.

They all do fine

Even good old Joe

Something on my mind

You might want to know.

This isn’t Europe

It is the USA.

We don’t like each other

We like it that way.

I don’t want to go to school.

I don’t care if I am sick

I want to act the fool

We know he’s a prick.

DNA proved

Justice isn’t so.

Children not my own

Clown putting on a show

Can’t put back

What’s taken away?

We can see

You’re working for pay.

Say what you like

Land of the free

Just don’t give us

Sincerity

Brexit

Brexit makes me proud to be an American. We may see the unification of Ireland, the separation of Scotland and, most certainly, an English depression as a consequence. England will be left as a tax haven, tourist site and source for military mercenaries.  We have all been influenced by vaudeville. But the music hall is most deeply ingrained in English culture. Looking over London’s architecture, it is apparent that they are deeply silly and proud of it. Can silliness be the explanation for their ruin?

Perhaps it is the return of Boudicca.  The British were so sick of the Romans that they revolted and laid waste to Romans and their sympathizers. They were defeated attacking a Roman army. The true cause of their defeat was that the British preferred trade even under the Romans. This lesson has been lost.

Maybe it is the Greeks. English take Greeks seriously. The English classical education justifies the English empire as in the history of the empires that precede it. The Greeks rag on the Germans but they are not leaving the Union. Perhaps the English were listening to the Greeks.

The English will tell you it is because of immigrants. Don’t they know their Union from their Commonwealth? It is the Poles. The Poles are the first large immigrant group that is not from the Commonwealth. The Poles lack the correct obeisance or truculence. The English are willing to destroy the Kingdom to rid them of the Poles.

What makes Poles so insufferable to the English? They both have awful food. The English are proud of their empire. The Poles are proud of surviving the Russians and Germans. Is it orthodontia? The size of their heads? The plumbing, it has to be the plumbing.  If you are a Pole living in England, please, don’t belittle the English. Even the Irish know better than that.

Putin brought his electioneering machinery to Brexit. Taught by the Americans, the Russians made a difference, just as they did with Don John. Who paid Putin? Given the emotional satisfaction, Putin probably gave a discount, or perhaps he double billed. Some wealthy Brit outraged by the Poles? Currency speculation? Irish Americans? The French kicking England out of their club house? Fury at the old empire? Who could resist the temptation? 

We are witnessing England succumb to Empire Fatigue. The United States follows. 

Material Analysis 2019

Historical Materialism was once all the rage. Freakonomics is historical materialism without Marx. I am giving an overview and then showing how Marx and basic questions about material conditions can enlighten.

Review of Marx

Wading through the invective and gossip of three or four volumes of Marx’s Capital to find the nuggets is tedious:

1. dictatorship of the proletariat
2. labor theory of value
3. class struggle
4. money isn’t capital
5. failure of colonialism
6. Centralization of production leads to unions.
7. business cycle
8. Competition drives down margins in investment and production. Profit requires disaster and  disruption.

You’re welcome. Sorry if I missed any. These ideas have been absorbed into common use. Occasionally an economist makes a living inveighing against or rediscovering one. Bernanke’s bad asset class or Tom Peter’s excellence, for instance. Here is a list of some other market issues:  

1. Winners change the rules.
2.  Parkinson’s Law
3.  Peter Principle
4.  Dilbert Principle
5.  treat vs cure
6. positive reinforcement frustrated by regression to the mean
7. products that create their markets

In fairness Communism is new and these issues also occur in markets:

1. People want things.
2. Some are more equal than others.
3. filthy factories
4. Aldi vs Target
5. responsibility for failure
6. excessive quality
7. standing committees

Socialism is treating constituents as donors. Socialism requires accommodation with Capital. Capital has no honor.  Lyndon Johnson was our socialist president. The few remnants of his programs stand against constant attack. The nature of accommodation defines the socialist. Are you a national socialist or an international socialist?

Where is the money?

Investors seek disruption and avoid disaster. One future disaster is described by the Council of Institutional Investors. The PDF on their website lists over one hundred companies that have unequal voting structure. These neutered shares form a large percentage of the market, indexes and funds.  Ask the Winklevoss brothers about Zuckerberg.

The obvious disruptor is China. The tax cut of 2019 releases capital to invest in China. Republicans were so anxious to free capital that they capped real estate taxes. Real estate taxes are noxious because they fund local services and thus encourage social segregation. The Republicans were following the age old schism between north and south. Southerners regard infrastructure as boondoggle. When the north got free after the civil war they were able to invest in light houses, canals, and railroads. Don John’s trade war with China backs up the boat so more investors can get on.

What is the Vote count?

Don John’s victory is attributed to racism, sexism, and jobs. Yes, but these terms lack content. It is asked why those who voted for Obama then voted for Don John. It wasn’t that many. Obama’s percentage of popular vote was not that great. It was the emergency room doctor; the guy comes to in the emergency room, looks up and says to himself:

-I hope he knows what he’s doing.

We were facing disaster. Stupid wasn’t working, maybe we should try smart. Considering how bad it was and the obvious disparity of ability, the percentage was pathetic. What surprised me was that after the guy got out of the hospital, he was so mad that he took the cast off with a hammer, was in such pain that he got drunk and then drove home.

Obama, from the same neighborhood, has Hugh Hefner's I can’t believe this smile. He is proud of being president and proud of the country for electing him. Like Tom Robinson, he felt compassion and tried to help. Like Tom Robinson this provoked their rage. If Obama cares about them, it means no one else does.

Sexism also lacks emphasis. Don John is a pimp. His entree to Manhattan was young girls and coke. The hospitality industry respects the auxiliary. We didn’t all come from the little house on the prairie, which wasn’t such a great deal either. Some of us came from the little shack by the railroad. The reason Miss Kitty had a heart of gold is because that was mom. Mom got beat on the street and Marshall Dillon walked by, or maybe it was the marshal beating her. Whoever, that was Dad. That’s why she kept you. Coming off the exit ramp you will see a gas station, fast food franchise and a motel.

Don John’s abuse of immigrants has an impact. The fruit rots on the trees. Restaurants have off days. The minimum wage has increased. This woke the Federal Reserve. The Fed sees inflation as wage inflation. Raising interest rates chokes off small business, the business that competes on wages. The reason the Fed has forborne is that they recognize a blip.

What should the Democratic Party do to win the 2020 presidency? Recognize demographics. There is no Hispanic voting bloc. There is no women’s voting bloc.  There is no youth vote. The middle class is tiny. There are only two voting blocs, those who vote their interest and candidates: racist and black. There are numerous triggers but only two actual segments. The black vote deserves more than smiling and playing the saxophone.

Who got paid?

Most presidents had foreign loyalties. When Kennedy said he was a jelly donut he was expressing a loyalty that he shared with his father. Hillary strikes me as an old fashioned French girl. The puzzle is Putin. I can understand the satisfaction of paying the US of us back for installing him. But this is dangerous. He is twisting our tail and he is the leader of a nation. Why would Putin think he is blessed? Putin got paid.

Who paid Putin? The likely candidate is the Health care industry. When Hillary proposed her fetcher bill the Saudis sat down and Ross Perot complained about the service. I haven’t seen that money since Nixon’s drug, I mean trade deal with China. There is such profit that it would be irresponsible for health care, drug and insurance, to let Hillary beat Don John. Electioneering doesn’t change minds, it works the edges, and it matters in tight elections. Why did health care off shore its electioneering? Don John is unreliable and Putin doesn’t report.

Historical Inevitability and United States History

Usually, historical inevitability means the king is great, the empire will last forever and I want to keep my job. The counter story, Noah, Gilgamesh or Ur, is that when you live on a delta surrounded by mountains things may change, someone building a boat in the middle of a plain may not be ridiculous and you should be nice to the hill kids. The first to directly disagree with inevitability as permanence was Adam Smith. Smith liked explanations. Smith said empires inevitably fall because they are inefficient. He attempted to convince England to abandon empire, particularly the American colonies. Wealth of Nations, Smith’s book, is not taught despite its central place in political and economic philosophy.

I think the fall of civilizations is more basic. I was in Cahokia, Illinois at the Native American trash heaps. The museum said that this town only lasted about two or three hundred years and they didn’t know why. Two or three hundred years is a decent run. How long can people stand to live with each other? Generation conflict in hierarchical social structures is destructive. Especially surrounded by trash heaps:
-Let’s put Roger on top of the trash heap.
-Why will he stay up there?
-We’ll tell him he’s in charge.

Karl Marx’s ponderous Capital is taught more frequently than Smith. Read Smith first. Don’t bother with Hegel: things don’t turn out as you expect big deal. Marx speaks to Smith and he expects you to have read the basic work.  Marx’s attack on Riccardo is confused with attacking Smith. Riccardo claims to be a Smith partisan. Riccardo is a turgid waste of time. The subtext of Riccardo is that Smith was right except for a few details, but we know what we are doing and our empire will survive. Marx conscientiously knocks down Riccardo’s arguments, implying that of course this empire will fall as all the others.  

Smith has a clever argument that feudalism was brought down by consumerism. Nobility preferred things over people, leading to Noble’s impoverishment. Marx hates this idea. He goes on about the Crofters who were self-sufficient with their own land and crafts. Manufacturers passed laws forcing Crofters off their land and into factories. Unfortunately Marx adds a comment about now being able to join unions which was used as an excuse for collectivization. Marx was describing an atrocity. Recent events in Soviet Russia and old Communist China confirm Smith’s observation. People want things.

Don’t be smug. The Freakonomics series of books provides examples using Smith’s systemic principles to analyze current events. The authors throw shade on global warming.  I think I understand. James Hansen argued that greenhouse gases would create a logarithmic global warming curve. This was a fairly optimistic prediction. Hansen didn’t appreciate the amount of organic material trapped in permafrost. All curves look similar at the origin. Hansen hates soot. His recommendations are predicated on snow cover. Now that the cover is gone, the recommendations should be reexamined. The Freakonomics chuckleheads said:

-I know curves. That’s Malthus. Heh heh.   

Malthus observed that populations increase exponentially whereas agricultural output had increased linearly. Recognizing the problem, science stepped up and agricultural output has exceeded population growth.

Medicine has also improved. Because antibiotics are fed to livestock, each new antibiotic becomes ineffective. Any scientist who comes up with another antibiotic should be taken out back and thoroughly slapped. They are digging wells in the Sahara. The advances of science lead us to global warming. Malthus was never disproven. The curves will still intersect. Freakonomics is saying that we don’t have to pay attention to scientists because science will save us. 

The check on human population is prosperity. When people are prosperous, they don’t have as many kids. If trends hold, we will plateau around 10 billion. Foul ups mean increase in population. The other issue is footprint. I sneer, quite rightly, at my neighbor driving his F150 to the lake with his jet ski while I drive my government subsidized hybrid to Madison with my road bike for my meet up. But we both have footprint. Freakonomics is being ninnies because the only political philosophy that promises prosperity without consumption is communism. 

Socialism is consumerism on steroids. There is nothing wrong with a socialist having a Ferrari.   We should all have Ferraris. Then we can race.
Just because Capitalism fails doesn’t make Communism inevitable. 

Don’t pester scientists for solutions. The low cost immediate ameliorative for global warming is nuclear winter.

The search for inevitability leads to geography. Geography is destiny because it defines why we hate each other. In my grammar school, the teachers divided the playgrounds between boys and girls. Once we knew the sides, we fought. The people of the delta, the people of the mountains, the people of the plains, the people of the coast, the people of the woodlands, the people of the desert, we all hate each other. 

Japan and Korea hate each other. Looking at the globe, this is easy to understand. Japan’s isolation exacerbated the problem. Every foreign contact was a typhus outbreak. When the United States busted open Japan and demanded trade, Japan reacted by mimicking our worst features. They chose a state religion and conquered parts of Russia, China and Korea. My greatest fear of North Korea is that they will provoke Japan. You would think they’d know better. 

China and Vietnam hate each other. Vietnam is gorgeous, one long nonstop beach, mountains, delta, farms, jungle, forest.  Say Vietnam was adjacent to the United States and despite our best efforts was still an independent nation that spoke Vietnamese. Everything the Chinese do is with the objective of someday being successful enough to take Vietnam. Vietnam knows this.

England, France and Germany hate each other. Newton stole Calculus from Leibniz. Leibniz was dependent on patronage and eviscerated by Candide. 

In the United States, North and South hate each other. The North is right.

Recently agriculture has been held responsible for warfare. A male genetic bottleneck was discovered about 8000 years ago around the start of farming. This corresponds to finding ritually slaughtered groups of people. I think sedentary populations activated the human lekking reflex. Women selected the same father for their children. This would have aggravated the spread of venereal disease. The slaughters were response to epidemic. Dementia, particularly venereal dementia, is often characterized by a demeanor that can be both terrifying and infuriating. 

War is excused as sharpening technological development. We are discussing inevitability. What matters is more difficult. Competition for sales leads to human development. But competition leads to collusion. War is seen as an antidote to human stasis. But war itself competes for capital investment. Marx spent an entire volume pounding in excruciating detail the difference between capital and money. The reason that stocks do well in inflation is that money and capital are different. War is a reaction to human progress and the, may I say it, inevitable social development described by Marx. It may not be communism, but it is change. Does it matter? Yo Helot. 

Military industry has gained prominence as a cause for war. Since military industry competes in the capital markets it has retarded consumer industry. Because of the concentration of military consumers, military capital investment employs less people making it inflationary.  It is argued that military research is more productive. I will concede that government research is more productive.

The major cause of war is atrocity.  Different peoples favor different atrocities. Starvation is favored by the Russians and the British. Part of Adam Smith’s disrepute is that the British used market forces as their all-purpose explanation for atrocities.  If you see a smaller vulnerable group provoked to hopeless conflict, the British are egging them on:  Kurds, Baltics, etc. the Lawrence of Arabia syndrome.  The Japanese renounced war when they realized they could no longer see their enemies eyes as they were killed. USA is known for bombing and military aid. 

Military aid is particularly disgusting. Living under a dictatorship is bad but it doesn’t have to be impossible. Eventually even the dumbest colonel notices that if people can go to work in the morning and return to their families in the evening the colonel will get a bigger take and may even be allowed to escape and enjoy their Delaware bank account.  Unless someone gives the colonel a few billion and tells them to kill the terrorists or whatever:
-Sure them too.
We have opened the gates of hell throughout the world.


I’m tempted to say materialist, let us take a systemic view of American colonial trade:

Imports	Exports
slaves	gold
indentured servants	silver
manufactured goods	land
earthworms	sugar
Honey Bees	cotton
Small Pox	tobacco
horses	peppers
Measles	chocolate
malaria	syphilis
apples	beaver
tea	potatoes

There are better lists, see Colombian Exchange. By land I do not mean that soil was dragged to Europe but rather the concept of land. Land rights and sovereignty over land are precious.

The forests we see today are far different than pre-colonial forests because of the European earthworms.

Smith derides the Spanish obsession with gold and silver, just creating holes in the ground. Keynes makes an allusion to burying money so people can dig it back up.

If you were to approach anyone throughout the world at the time of the American Revolution and ask for the news, they probably would not mention us. The issue of the time was whether France or England would rule the world.

The American English colonial population was around two and a half million including slaves, excluding Native Americans.  The population of England was less sure, say eight million. Britain’s anthems avow that they are a monarchy, they are not slaves, they are lucky and they run it. Britain’s opposition to slavery is due to their experience with the Barbary pirates.

George Washington was Virginian. Virginia’s principal export was tobacco. Prosperity was a consequence of how large your tobacco plantation was. This led to fierce inbreeding which led to an intense lekking environment governed by ostentatious display. Washington was a poor relation somewhere in the hierarchy to a good marriage to a plantation owner. Having a small estate, Washington was smart enough to earn money and land as a surveyor. The irony of surveying large tracts of wilderness while owning small holdings must have been obvious. His gentleman’s status entitled him to a paying military commission in the colonial forces. The French and British were engaged in a little bump and shove. The real point was to get Native American tribes to fight each other. Surrounded by the forests of Pennsylvania, Washington went mad and murdered a French officer.   

Nothing comes from nowhere. If Washington had not killed Jumonville we would still be part of the commonwealth. The subsequent French response made it clear that Native Americans, settlers, and soldiers died, not gentlemen. Washington’s force was subdued and Washington signed a confession. This started the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict involving all the colonial powers. As usual, burgeoning population threatened the existing social order. Jumonville perfectly crystallized the threat felt by the nobility and gentility.  In continental America the French were primarily fur traders, with few coastal harbors. So the British won. The French were depending on their strong European continental presence to win sufficient victories to bargain for their lost colonies, didn’t happen. The British navy and continental treachery frustrated the French. The British had expended men and fortune holding their colonies. Now was the time to balance the books. Faced with paying for their war, Britain’s opposition to slavery, and squeezed by the British loans and controlled prices, the colonies chose treason.

Robert Morris financed the rebellion. He knew that even with his great wealth, he would be squeezed next.


Tories, loyal subjects of the king who believed in paying their debts and opposing slavery were tortured in front of their family and neighbors and robbed of their land and possessions.


Washington’s military career was not as prosperous as he had hoped. The British were unhappy about Jumonville and a few excesses. But he had enough success to marry well, which was the point. His eventual commission as head of the Continental army was due more to his social prestige and position than his military background. The miracle was that ex slaves, farmers, and rabble followed the foppish Virginia plantation owner. They must have shared his avarice. He had learned to keep his mouth shut.

America sent our best man, Benjamin Franklin, to the fecal encrusted palace of Versailles. The French obliged with a few mercenaries, adventurers, funds and gunpowder. Washington skimmed the French funds for his plantations and land acquisition. Eisenhower was a genius, Butler won the civil war, but Washington, for all his faults, was the last American general who understood attrition. Washington must avoid a victory that only changes British command structure and strategy. He wants the British generals he has, thank you very much. Another constraint was the gunpowder drought. The English had gunpowder and the colonials didn’t. If France had stayed out of the conflict the colonials and British would have bled each other white and France might have both continents. By another miracle Franklin danced his silly dance, wore his silly hat, and dragged France into the rebellion.

France sent General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse. Trained from early youth to their professions they fought a coordinated land sea battle that defeated the British at Yorktown.
Washington didn’t want to go anywhere south. He rightly feared slave insurrection. The South’s failure in all its conflicts is due, in part, to the necessity of maintaining garrison to forestall such rebellions. The British, as they do, were stirring up the indentured servants and slaves. They enlisted a few, but if they had armed the slaves the British might have won. Washington was dragged to Yorktown with Robert Morris footing the bill.

With the war won, Washington made his worst mistake. Franklin was exhausted. Washington sent Jefferson to replace him as ambassador to France. Thomas Jefferson was a master of disingenuous sanctimony. When they had to perfume the pig: defend treason, bankruptcy, and slavery, Jefferson was the guy. Washington just wanted to get Jefferson as far away as possible.

It was time to settle accounts. The French King would get the tobacco concession. Everyone was in hock, but with trade moving it was possible they could pull it off. The Virginia planters including Jefferson, American excises, Robert Morris, Haym Salomon, and the French monarchy would all be put square, or at least able to front. Then Jefferson and his best friend Lafayette, American war hero and French minister of trade, pissed on the deal. Why? Why would Jefferson do that? The Virginia planters were ruined. Jefferson was ruined. There were no tobacco excises. Robert Morris, Haym Salomon, and the French monarchy were ruined. Why would anyone trade with this new country that couldn’t even do the tobacco deal? From Jefferson’s point of view within the Virginia hierarchy if everyone is bust then he is equal.
-Not with my Tabachy.


With little excise coming in, Morse and Hamilton decided to tax whiskey. They didn’t want their loans defaulted on. If you were a subsistence farmer in the middle of nowhere the only good worth dragging over the mountains to market was whiskey. The large distilleries didn’t appreciate the competition, so the tax was to their benefit. The farmers resented a tax on the poorest that cut their one source of tools and supplies. Some of the farmers were Washington’s tenants but they had long since realized that he couldn’t come out and collect the rent. So Washington didn’t mind enforcing the tax.


After putting down Shay’s Whiskey Rebellion the United States had enough income to borrow on. The British were amused:
-Didn’t pay us the last time.

Backstabbing Jefferson, having escaped the French revolution, told the French to hold off until Washington was out of office. The delegation came back from France claiming Talleyrand wanted his beak wet. Two-term Washington started as France’s man. Since he couldn’t get the loan, he should grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out. Washington forestalls Jefferson by getting his stooge, John Adams, in as president.


Washington died struggling to maintain his plantation. Under Washington we had begun to support England’s antislavery efforts. In part to oppose Barbary pirates. In part because it made domestic slaves more valuable and gave American pirates new opportunities.


Adams, having to choose from the French or the British, goes to the Dutch. At that point the Dutch are a two-hundred-year-old republic. The Americans were kiting, or debt consolidation. The Dutch were pirates. Send a boat out, if it comes back, they’re rich, what happens in between who knows? Dutch share the most popular religious belief, Calvinism, that the universe has an ethical plan. Gangsters like that you got what was coming to you. One of the many splits in Dutch society was between the adherents of Britain and France. The supporters of France also favored America. This division helped Adams get the loan.


Once Adams had the loan he scuttles back to the British for a trade deal. The French are already furious that after they saved America and lost their monarchy, Washington went neutral on them. This left the French talking to Jefferson. To ensure passage of their treaty, the British buy Adams’ midterm congressional elections. With Adams obviously in England’s pocket, the French attack American shipping. America then has to raise its own navy and army, so much for neutral.

The Dutch were widely ridiculed for their factious society. Perhaps it was this example or Adams’ sensitivity to criticism that leads to the Alien and Sedition acts. Adams still saw himself as part of the British Empire.


The paranoia of Adams was justified. Daniel Boone was outraged that his Spanish land titles were not honored; Spain and America were not at war. Billy Caldwell, a British- Potawatomi fur trader in the Chicago area wound up running a Potawatomi tribe in Iowa. Whenever someone proclaims their good qualities: honesty, loyalty, courage, thrift, sobriety, virtue, modesty, or patriotism, consider why the subject was broached. Adams had no right to patriotism.


Adams’ repression elected Jefferson. The United States population was over 5 million with slaves. France had almost 30 million. The French:
-Freedom for us and nobody else,
See The Marseilles were now ruled by Napoleon. Because of Dutch factions, France had conquered Holland. At this point France was allied with Spain. Since France owned Holland, Napoleon forgave France’s Dutch debt. How can you be unjust to Calvinists? In the Louisiana Purchase Napoleon cancelled eighteen million francs of French debt. Some of this debt may have been owned by the citizens or monarchy of the Kingdom of France. Some may have been owed the citizens or government of earlier French republics. Some debt may have belonged to the citizens or government of the Dutch Republic. None of these lenders would have minded if the USA had stiffed Napoleon. It is difficult to collect debts without the support of a government. Debt default is one of the reasons for revolution and conquest.

As to the land, Louisiana, whose title had passed back and forth between Spain and France, USA was here and France was there. Haiti had just kicked Napoleon’s butt. Napoleon was a general, not an admiral; he wasn’t coming back. There may have been the occasional loyal French subject, whether colonial or Native American, but the issue would be far more immediate than a distant treaty, certainly not worth the expenditure. Everyone remarks how advantageous the Louisiana Purchase was to America and how Napoleon got the best he could, given his situation. Why do the deal at all?

The only accomplishment was funding Napoleon’s assault on Europe. Why would Jefferson do that? He did it because he was Jefferson. It wasn’t just payback to Adams. The Louisiana Purchase was yet another example of American military aid.

The British, infuriated by the USA turning Napoleon loose and our support of slavery interdict trade leading to the war of 1812. It was generally recognized that the import of slaves subsidized piracy. We no longer had British protection against Barbary pirates and paid the pirates' tribute.
The USA anthem says we are free and brave, and we will survive and get those slaves and indentured servants.


The overseas Dutch carried on their financial affairs throughout the world, including the United States. If their money was good enough, they’re good enough.


Historical Inevitability: I give you Washington, Franklin, Adams and that sanctimonious shit, Jefferson.