When Good Things Happen to Good People

I have a friend who lives in another state. We don't see each other a lot and seldom get a chance to talk, but it doesn't seem to matter. He's still a good and dear friend. He has been a tremendous influence on my son over the years, one of those wonderful people who arrive on the scene in the lives of your children at a crucial time and make all the difference. Every parent knows what I'm talking about. The fact is, I can never repay him for the devotion and the wisdom he has poured into my son.

Anyway, several years ago my friend went through a divorce, later on in life than is common. I felt terribly for him. He never was one to whine about it, but whenever we talked, I could tell he was lonely. Regardless of how he may have been feeling, it never impacted his work. He is a teacher/musician, and what he produces is magical. I marveled at how he could go about his work with the same boundless enthusiasm and passion despite his loss.

Years have passed since then. A year or so ago we were at a party together and he was telling me how terribly awkward it was trying to meet people at his age. He sounded like he was almost ready to give up and move on into the rest of his life single. But, my friend is the kind of man who God had in mind when he said in the book of Genesis, "It is not good that man should be alone." All I could think to say to him was..."You just never know when someone might come along. It usually happens the minute you stop trying to make it happen. God's timing is probably better than yours."

Last fall I was sitting on the sofa checking out the Asian stock markets at 6 am, when my cell phone lit up. Who in the world could possibly be calling me at such an ungodly hour? It was my friend...and he had news that just had to be shared, no matter what the clock said. He had met a woman!

I listened to him tell the story as only he can, with all the hilarity and joy of a school boy. When I hung up the phone I remember thinking that I knew no one on Earth who deserved it more.

Then, just last night he called again, this time to inform me of their engagement and the mythically romantic way it came about. It was a tail that would have made Shakespeare jealous. I put him on speaker phone so Pam could hear it. It is a beautiful thing to hear a man so full trying desperately to express the gratitude of his heart for his good fortune.

I hadn't had a particularly good day. It had been full of conflict and anxiety, the type of worry that overtakes you in the business world at times. But my friend's call changed everything. Suddenly, I had forgotten the cares of the day. All I knew was that something awesome had happened to a very good man.

Scripture tells us that we are to "rejoice with those who rejoice." You know why? Because it's a great feeling when good things happen to good people!

How To Get Yourself Killed

The Chinese economy has slowed to a crawl, prompting a 7% sell off yesterday and a 20 billion dollar cash infusion this morning by the Chinese government. Stock markets around the world took their cue from China yesterday and sold off dramatically. Today, indications are that the sell off will continue. Saudi Arabia has withdrawn diplomatic recognition of Iran as the Sunni-Shia rivalry in the Muslim world escalates, providing an answer to the often asked question...the Middle East couldn't possible get worse, could it? Meanwhile, a group of ranchers are holed up in a federal facility in Oregon, promising violence against anyone who tries to dislodge them. Back in Washington, our government proceeds spending roughly 11 billion dollars every single day, even though they collect only 9.7 billion in revenue per day. Our current national debt is a little over 18 trillion dollars. Nobody, no political party, no Presidential candidate has any earthly idea how to pay that kind of money back. At the current rate of spending and the new trajectory of interest rates, in a few years we are going to have trouble just servicing that much debt. 

The weird thing is that 34 years ago when I got into business, our national debt was a mere 1 trillion, and everyone was freaking out because we had never seen a debt with that many zeros. Back then interest rates were through the roof, CD rates were 10-12%. My first home mortgage was over 13%! I remember some of the older guys in the business wondering whether or not we were about to go into a depression. We didn't. And now our debt is 18 times higher than it was then. So, I guess that when my liberal friends laugh at me for worrying about deficits and debt, they have a point. 

Still, I find it very difficult to think that 18 trillion dollars of debt simply doesn't matter. The interest payments on that debt will continually eat up an ever larger share of our national income over time, money that won't be available to provide a safety net, fight terrorism or maintain our National parks. All the smart people in Washington, when they talk about the debt at all, glibly assure us that we will "grow our way out of it." With an economic growth rate hovering around 2%, and 94 million people out of the workforce, I don't find that argument very persuasive.

But, sometimes I feel like I am the only American left who worries about it anymore. Trump, Cruz and Rubio aren't losing any sleep over it. Hillary and Bernie don't feel in any way constrained in their ambitions for an ever expanding and muscular federal government by the presence of an 18 trillion and growing outstanding obligation. So, we just go along with our collective plans to do nothing...except add to it. 

So, Dunnevant, you might ask, what would you do about it? Well, for starters, I suppose that I would impose an across the board cut in spending. Not a cut in the rate of increase of spending, an actual cut. You know...if your department spent 2 billion last year, this year you will have to get by on 1.8 billion. At least, that's what a spending cut looks like in my house. But Doug, an across the board cut assumes that all spending is of equal priority, when in fact some spending is essential and some isn't. It's the job of our political leaders to prioritize. True. But our political leaders have not demonstrated the required leadership skills to prioritize anything. So, it's just going to have to be across the board...no exceptions. But, what about defense? What about it? It gets cut. Deal with it, generals. Then, after my "draconian and heartless" budget cuts were in place, I would work on the revenue side by cutting...yes, cutting, some tax rates. Twice in my lifetime personal and corporate tax rates have been cut resulting in an increase in revenue to the Treasury (JFK and Reagan). Then I would eliminate all of the corporate welfare that has been caked into the tax code. This would make me public enemy number one on Wall Street, at the banks, down on the farm, and on K street. 

And then...I would be assassinated.

The Bundy Boys are Back

The Bundy boys are back....and this time they mean business. Along with a hundred or so of their gun-toting supporters, they are holed up in a nature preserve owned and operated by the Federal Government, and have declared their intention to stay "as long as it takes."

I will not here wade into the tall grass of their alleged grievances, largely because it really doesn't matter. This sort of macho posturing seems to be a part of the Bundy family DNA. The long and short of it seems to be that the protesters resent the heavy handed presence of the Federal footprint out west. They believe that the Feds own too much land, place too many restrictions on ranchers, etc...

Ok, anyone who reads this blog knows my views on government, the less of it the better. My default position is that, generally speaking, much of what government touches ends up worse off. However...I am not an anarchist. Government has a vital role to play in a free Republic. If government oversteps its bounds avenues exist for us to bring legal challenge. Gathering together a hundred heavily armed malcontents and taking over a federal building isn't one of them.

Yes, I am aware that the building was not occupied and nobody was hurt and that presently nobody is in danger. And yes, I am aware that no property has been destroyed. But ask yourself this question...suppose the Bundy boys were Muslims? Better yet, what would be our collective reaction to events in Oregon if the protesters were part of #blacklivesmatter? I think it's fair to say that in either case, things would sound and look very different than it does this morning.

Tax-payers, Meet John Beale!

Why is this man smiling? 

Tax-payers, meet John Beale. You have been very good to him over the past 15 years. He has been the highest paid employee at the Enviromental Protection Agency, earning a cool $206,000 a year of your hard earned money. He was a climate change expert, who managed to keep his high paying job since 2000 despite seldom actually...showing up for work. For long stretches of time, including one 18 month period beginning in June of 2011, Mr. Beale never once darkened the doors at the EPA. His explanation for all of his absences was that he was working undercover for the CIA, a claim that for nearly 15 years no one at the EPA bothered to confirm. In addition to his chronic absentism, Beale also managed to bill his employer for 33 first class airline trips for $266,000 along with several stays in luxury hotels at twice the normal per diem allowed by the government, all of which were approved. Despite all of this, his "retirement" party in September of 2011, attended by EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, occurred on a Potomac yacht, no doubt also paid for by you. To add insult to injury, Beale continued to collect his six figure income a full 18 months after retiring from a job he never performed in the first place. When finally caught, Beale pleaded guilty to defrauding the US government of $900,000 and added that lying for all of those years was, "kind of a rush!"

When asked by investigators what he did in all of his time, Beale provided this nugget:

" I spent time exercising. I spent a lot of time working on my house, and I used a lot of that time  trying to find ways to fine tune the capitalist system to discourage companies from damaging the environment."

Well, I'm not sure whether of not he found ways to keep companies from damaging the environment, but this guy could write a book about how to "fine tune the capitalist system." Step one: get a six figure government job, get paid without having to show up for work. Step two: send your government employer the bills for all of your paid vacation travel. Step three: after your retirement party, continue to collect your sweet salary for another 18 months!

I wouldn't suggest any of you who work in the private sector to try this. I feel relatively certain that if you didn't show up for a week someone would know and your employment would soon come to an end. I mean, even if you told your boss that you were engaged in secret clandestine work for the CIA, he or she still wouldn't buy it. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the next time you hear a politician ask the Tax-payers for even more of your money, I want all of you to remember this story. I want you to consider the manifold incompetence on display at this one government agency. I want you to imagine how much of your money gets thrown around without oversight or consequence in the insane labyrinth of government. Then I want you to ask yourself whether your government truly needs more than the 3.7 TRILLION it collected this past year. Can any government who throws around six figure salaries to people like John Beale really be trusted with a never ending supply of more of our money?

Sorry Uncle Sam. You've collected almost 4 trillion dollars this year. You're going to have to get by on that!

2016 Predictions

Making predictions about the future is tricky business. However, it has never stopped me from making them. So once again I offer for your consideration my official stone cold, lead pipe locks for 2016.

1. There will be no peace in the Middle East in 2016.

2. After suffering financial setbacks brought on by Russian bombing of their Oil pipeline business, ISIS will join the family of nations by issuing 30 year bonds, becoming the first debtor terrorist State.

3. The Democratic National Committee, in keeping with their years long effort to protect Hillary Clinton, will schedule her Democratic Party Nomination acceptance speech at this year's convention for 2 am mountain time.

4. The stock market will gyrate up and down in completely arbitrary ways for barely discernible reasons in a fashion that literally no person alive or dead knows how to predict.

5. President Obama, exhausted after seven years of being both a Christian and a Muslim, declares himself the first Buddhist president.

6. Lucy, despite another year on this earth and despite the fact that never once has a trash can lunged at her, will still be mortally afraid of them, to the point of hysteria.

7. My Son and I will spend the entire year arguing back and forth via text message over who will be a bigger disaster...Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

8. In her fourth year of teaching, Kaitlin will add to her trophy case of accolades, the coveted "Educator of the Universe" award given to the teacher best able to overcome obstacles placed in their way by federal, state and local school bureaucrats.

9. After a lengthy investigation by the NCAA, it is discovered that football teams from the Big 12 and the ACC had secretly been unionized, resulting in work rules that allowed defenses to take off every third play. Officials at the NCAA had become concerned watching 2015 bowl games as team after team from the two conferences consistently got shredded by very ordinary offenses from the SEC. Other union work rules had defined job assignments in such a way as to exempt "cover corners" from tackling responsibilities.

10. Apple, stung by analyst's suggestions that they had "run out of ideas," announce their latest product innovation...the digital, programmable toilet paper dispenser.

11. After the retirement of the nation's last remaining competent letter carrier, Don Dunnevant, the Postal Service declares bankruptcy.

12. Lucy will continue to choose the coldest, rainiest days of the year to launch her "sniff-every-square-inch-of-the-back-yard-before-peeing" initiative.

13. After five years of resisting persistent nagging by Google Adsense to "monetize my blog," I give in and allow ads to display, only to discover that the only people who ever click on an ad are from Russia. Cross, "get rich by writing a blog" from my career goals list.

Lucky Me.

For the first time maybe ever, I got to celebrate New Years Eve alone with this woman...

Yes, in all of our time together, we have never done New Years by ourselves, until 2016. The kids are gone. Many of our best friends were out of town, or under the weather, so I had this stunning woman all to myself. Lucky me.

We had a delicious meal at the Boathouse, then walked around looking at the beautiful decorations at Short Pump mall. Before heading home, we stopped into Firebirds to order dessert-to-go...chocolate cake and cheesecake. Once home we watched a little college football,(more about that later), then decided to binge-watch several episodes of Friday Night Lights, a show we somehow missed when it first came out. Pajamas and dessert with a scared dog between us on the sofa,(fireworks), might not sound glamorous or terribly exciting...but for me it was a wonderful night!

Today we plan on starting the New Year with a hike with Lucy, then brunch somewhere. Over the next couple of days we will start taking down the Christmas decorations and I will clean out the garage...my  New Years tradition. As long as I'm with this woman, I'll be ok.

Speaking of college football, so far this bowl season, this is what I have observed:

Auburn beats Memphis by 21 points

LSU beats Texas Tech by 29 points

Miss. State beats NC State by 23 points

Texas A&M loses to Louisville by 6 points

Alabama beats Mich. State by 38 points

So far then, the SEC is 4-1, and have out scored their opponents by a whopping 111 points.

Please, remind me again how the era of SEC college football dominance is over.

Best Headlines of the Day

The Drudge Report is on fire today. These headlines are crazy! So I've decided to highlight some of the more provocative ones and offer my snide, snarky observations as a bonus.

1. War against feral hogs on in Texas.

    

Don't #FERALLIVESMATTER?

2. Styrofoam ban begins in DC.

Question: What causes more lasting damage to the environment? Styrofoam or Congressmen?

3. Lucas says he sold Star Wars to Disney "white slavers."

Apparently because the "Muslim slavers" couldn't come up with the cash.

4. 20 percent of Americans not alive during Monica Lewinski affair.

And the other 80% wish they weren't.

5. Pakistanis with terror connections caught crossing US border.

But were later released when it was discovered that they fully intended to vote for Hillary Clinton.

6. Sweden turning its back on refugees.

A rare black mark for Bernie Sanders favorite country.

7. Trump bimbo blitz puts Hill on heels.

Wait...what??

8. Bernie flies coach

First class passengers rejoice!

9. HOLIDAY HORROR: Waterfall of blood pours from elevator after crushes cruise ship worker.

"In the mornin', in the evenin', ain't we got fun?"

10. Map of Middle East being redrawn in ways that could lead to new conflicts.

...because EVERYONE is an art critic!

11. Bill Cosby arrested for 2004 sexual assault.

Bill Clinton still at large.