Aaron Cleary, The Fed Funds Rate, and Economic Growth

It's almost religious dogma among the neo-Keynesian economists who determine economic policy that lowering the Federal Funds Rate is supposed to spur economic growth.

Aaron Cleary, an economist in his own right, took on this assumption. He found no data to support it .

The economists running our economy have no idea what they're doing. They are making it up as they go along.

An Economic Case For An Imaginary Relationship

Aaron Cleary examines "waifu" and crunches the numbers.

His conclusion? It can cost the average man up to $720,000 to find a wife. This isn't just drinks and dinner, but also the opportunity costs, time, and sanity.

Consider not just the various financial, time, labor, and opportunity costs associated with finding a quality real world girl.  Consider the lack of drama and the mental pain associated with having an "imaginary girlfriend."  Not only do you save yourself $700,000 in explicit and implicit costs, you also save yourself; 

Being stood up, Being shot down, Drama, Temper tantrums, Girls cheating on you, Girls leading you on, Bi-polar freaks, Feminism, Blue ball

and every other form of scourge and fire-laden hurdles you and every other man had to jump through during his teens and 20's.

Then, of course, calculate the lost time and opportunity if you find a wife and the marriage fails. Cleary doesn't have experience with that. I'm not as diligent as he is, but I can speak from experience how being stuck in a bad marriage and being forced into a divorce can set your ass back on your goals, health, and finances among many other things.

It is survivable, though. And I have mostly recovered.

I don't advise you to life your life strictly by the numbers. Many people see that "It can cost over $200,000 to raise a child" and decide not to have them. That's based on a lot of assumptions though, which are easy to work around and overcome. You don't have to buy a $600 crib and $40 onesies that MAY be worn once if the child doesn't outgrow that size before you get to it.

It's the same with wife hunting. When I dated, I usually made it a point for the first date to do something that doesn't cost money or is inexpensive. Meet at a park and take a walk, or meet for coffee (not expensive stuff like Starbucks). Some guys advise you not to pay for dinner until after she has put out. I typically wouldn't pay for a serious meal until the 3rd date or so.

I guess if I were in my early 20's today, waifu or sexbots would probably seem like an attractive option. I'd rather have an abundance mindset and game though. They'll get you farther in life.

Burn Rate (Cost of Living)

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. During the "Great Depression" of the 1930s, if you lived on a farm out in the country (excepting the Dust Bowl), you probably wouldn't have noticed. You would have everything you need to get by right there: crops, animals, milk, firewood, etc. Many family farms didn't even have money, but they got by.

But now in an urban or suburban environment, think about how much money you need just to exist. When you get paid, before you've even gone out to spend anything, you have to account for things like the following:

Benefits (Health, Dental, Vision, Disability, etc)
Taxes (Federal, State, Social Security, Mediwhatever)
Retirement contribution
Car registration
Car payment
Car insurance
Fuel
Rent or mortgage (mortgage could include PMI)
Renters or homeowners insurance
Utilities
Cell phone bill
Cable or FIOS bill

And many more depending on your preferences and situation. Like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, subscriptions to magazines and so on.

This is before you've bought a single grocery. Before you've bought beer or gone out to eat.

It's amazing how much it costs simply to be alive in America (and probably other countries).

LVMi: Sports Stadiums are Temples to Crony Capitalism

I've never been much for sports. I have tried over the years, but just cannot get myself to care. The fastest way to get me to leave a room is to start talking about a football game. It bores the crap out of me.

I've also seen over the years how professional sports rape the taxpaying fans (and non-fans, like me). Every time a team decides it needs a new stadium, they get the taxpayer to pay for it.

I remember living in San Antonio during high school. (I went to John Jay, which since became one of the first schools to force student to wear RFID tags to be tracked at all times.) Henry Cisneros was mayor at the time. He decided they needed a sports stadium. He jacked the city sales tax up to 9% as one of the efforts to pay for it. The Alamo Dome was built. I'm not sure if it's still called the Alamo Dome or if it's since been renamed after a bailed out megabank like all the rest. I could look it up, but that implies I care and I don't.

San Antonio was shot down for an NFL team halfway through construction, but they used the stadium for other events.

During my time in South Jersey, pretty much every Philly team demanded and got a new taxpayer funded stadium built for them. Then they jacked up ticket prices and banned bringing in any snacks so you have to pay their outrageous prices in the stadium. Good thing I don't go to games because I don't care about sports. I've never understood why sports fans tolerate this crap though.

LVMi has a blog post about the NFL and Crony Capitalism. I knew the NFL got all kinds of taxpayer funded benefits, but I didn't realize they were completely tax exempt.

I've also never understood why people who whine incessantly about how CEOs are way overpaid never seem to whine about the insane wealth of celebrities, politicians, sports stars, and the NFL itself. They also seem OK with the incredible wealth of people they approve of, like Warren Buffet. But if they don't like you, your wealth is wrong.

Prepping Is Mainstream Now

First, I'm married again. She's a real sweet girl. Should have met her first. This blog now has two marriage epochs. Any reference to "my wife" prior to November 2013 refers to my Succubus ex-wife. Any reference to "my wife" after September 2014 refers to my new wife.

Yes, congratulations to me.

That said, my wife (post Sep 14) came home tonight. I mentioned an article I was reading about how the dollar could be dead in 6 months. It's a topic I follow. With almost 18 Trillion in national debt and the bailed out megabanks with insane levels of exposure to derivatives relative to their actual assets, we could easily be screwed at any moment.

Or who knows; maybe somehow this could hang on for a few more years, but math indicates a day of reckoning has to come.

Her response?

"Yeah, we were talking about preparedness at work today."

It amazes me that a topic that a few years ago would get you accused of being a "kook" or "conspiracy theorist" is suddenly on everybody's mind.

Next thing you know, the man on the street will be talking about Bitcoin and putting money into foreign currencies and in foreign banks.

I Guess We Learned Nothing From 2008, or 1928...

Of all the idiotic short sightedness... I present you with 3 Reasons To Tap Home Equity to Buy Stocks.

I kept checking to make sure this isn't from The Onion, or Cracked.com, or even Buzzfeed. Nope, it's Yahoo! Finance. Not that Yahoo! Finance has that great a reputation for being a useful financial site. This is probably the first time I've read it in years, and only because I read ABOUT the article but there was no link so I had to look for it myself.

It's not a bright idea to tap into one volatile market to invest into another volatile market.

I made the big mistake in the mid 00's to over-leverage a house because values were rising so fast. Then the market collapsed out from under me. After paying on an upside down house for 7 years, divorce forced my hand and I had to short sell the house. Housing values in that area crashed so bad, the buyer purchased the house in 2014 for less than I originally paid for it in 2001.

But since nobody ever learns, here is the seed for the next housing/stock collapse.

Book Review: Judaism, Law & The Free Market by Rabbi Joseph Isaac Lifshitz

I picked a Kindle version of this book up for free at some point from the Acton Institute. I finally got around to reading it.

As a Christian, I often enjoy reading books by rabbis. I'm convinced where the church often goes wrong is in being ignorant of the Jewish roots of Christianity. I've heard way too many sermons attempting to exposit the teachings of Christ in the context of 21st century American Evangelical Churchianity. I attempt to not make the same mistakes on those rare occasions when I get to teach.

This book is primarily focused on economics, specifically what can be learned from the rabbis and sages over the years. The author quotes extensively from Jewish documentation from just about all periods of history. In some cases, he may quote a little too much. Each chapter has copious notes for further explanation.

This book contains 6 chapters:
1) Introduction
2) Property Rights and the Image of God
3) Social Welfare in Talmudic Law
4) Generosity
5) Competition
6) Spontaneous Order

The most valuable insights I got from reading this book are from my highlights:

• "...charity is considered an act of kindness rather than an act of justice."
• "...charity does not redefine property rights. The rich man does not owe the needy, and the charity he gives is not a redistribution of his wealth according to justice."
• "Economic success is considered a worthy aim, so long as one achieves it through honest means."
• "...Rabbi Akiva taught his son: 'It is better to profane your Sabbath than to become dependent on others.'"
• "When choosing between your own poor and the poor of the city, your own poor come first."
• "The commandment to give charity was not intended to appease the poor person but to raise him out of his misery."
• "There is another important difference between charity and generosity (investment- my addition). When performing charity, the focus is on the giver. In generosity, the focus is on the needy. I am thinking of the common practice whereby an older, well-to-do businessman helps a younger businessman by giving him leads or even capital. This sort of generosity is not identical with charity. It bears more similarity to a father helping his son."
• "A community of generosity is also prosperous. Many times the young man who was helped climbs up the ladder of success, and ends up later helping the person who helped him. Thus, when an older person helps a young man, his act is similar to planting a tree insofar as even if the old man himself does not benefit, his children will."

This was an interesting book. 

I personally believe charity should be local, and this book validates that. Keeping it local provides accountability and reduces waste. It prevents politicians and crusaders from dipping their hands in the pot and diverting funds to other causes or to their own pockets.

When the author speaks of generosity, he means investment. It is better to invest in the poor and needy to lift them out of their misery than to just throw a little money at them and let them remain in that state.

If you're interested in what thousands of years of rabbis and sages have to say about the free market, you can get the book from my Amazon affiliation:

A Conversation I Wish We'd Have With Politicians

Yesterday I stumbled across an essay Ron Paul wrote about his experiences with learning Austrian Economics, as well as how he learned and was mentored by some giants in the field, like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

Part of a paragraph jumped out at me, which I figured was worth a quick blog rant:

It is time, of course, for them to do some serious explaining, since after 70
years of intervention, conditions have gotten worse, and we face an
international banking crisis unprecedented in all of history

That's the point most people seem to miss. They keep making excuses for the politicians. Politician promises if we get this bill passed or this program running, everything will be better. But it makes it worse. Then we have to pass something else or start some new program. Then there are more excuses by the politicians and their enablers in the media.

Jeffrey Tucker: If Food Service Ran Like Health Care/Insurance

The other day on the Laizzes Faire Club blog, Jeffrey Tucker related a story of how he ended up at a restaurant and enjoyed a $5 bottle of wine and a $7 cheeseburger. He then pondered what it would be like if the food industry ran like the health care/insurance industry:

Now, let’s just replay this situation according to modern health care rules, which is to pretend that the food market plays by the same rules as the medical market.

You walk in and ask about the special of the day. The waiter wants to see your food insurance card. So you dig around and find it. He points out that you have a high deductible. This means you have a minimum amount to pay if you happen to order anything that is not covered on your food plan. But you don’t happen to have your food plan on you, so you really don’t know if burgers and wine are covered.

In any case, you order wine, but there’s only one kind available. So you ask the price. They don’t know. They are stunned that you would even ask. It will show up on the final bill, and much of how much you pay depends on your food planners and the plan you’re on.

Fine. Let’s move on to the meal. You’d like a burger, but you need to know the various options. Again, the waiter points out that the need to have a burger is a matter of human dignity. Human beings cannot and should not be tainted by issues of choice over what you’d be willing to pay for. This is why we have food insurance: so that no one may ever go hungry.

But wait just a minute. What if you’re actually concerned that you’ll get too much to eat? What’s the point of paying for tons of things you don’t actually want?

Plus, the only cheese I truly love is pepper jack. I’ve tried cheddar, provolone, American, Swiss, and all the rest, but I only actually connect at a deeper level with pepper jack. Criticize me if you want. It’s just the way it is.

The waiter rolls his eyes: the burger experts know what is best. He has no idea why I’m being such a problem eater. I should be a “good eater” just like “good patients” in hospitals and just accept what is coming to them. This is how we go about doing our part to serve the common good.

Several months later, you finally see the bill for your meal. Part of it is paid by the food insurer and part is paid out of pocket. The hamburger fryer has his bill, as does the bun person, and the waiter gets his cut… well, you get the point.

There is a huge number of specialists involved here! We dare not deny them their income, else we find ourselves without food! Never mind that the bill is through the roof. Hundreds of dollars, even thousands.

- See more at: http://lfb.org/today/cheap-wine-and-expensive-health-care/#sthash.8yImjtQ5.dpuf

Scary, ain't it?

Book Review: Enjoy the Decline by Aaron Cleary

I read this book back in January, and am finally getting around to writing my review of it. I'm way late to the party.

Enjoy the Decline is a tagline Cleary has been using for years on his blog "Captain Capitalism" and is also the title of his book.

If I'm rendering it correctly, a major point to the book is, the America we were promised as children isn't going to happen. It's gone. A land of freedom and limitless opportunities has been replaced by wealth redistribution and punishment for success. And it's not your fault. It was taken from you. So what can you do about it?

You have to accept it. Then you have to find a way to enjoy it. Rather than bust your ass in a corporate world ruled by status quo Silent Generation and Baby Boomers, scale back your economic production to what you need to support your lifestyle (go Galt) and enjoy the decline. If you do well, you will be taxed and regulated by the parasites. But if you scale back far enough, the parasite can get nothing from the host.

Cleary analyzes the death of the United States, complete with economic models and charts (he is an economist).

Foodstamp Surfer Dude

I've noticed a lot of people are up in arms over a Fox News story about some California surfer who doesn't work, buys lobster on his food stamp card, and hangs out and screws hot chicks (Hat Tip to South Park).

I haven't watched the video yet. And as a productive taxpayer who is forced to support two households thanks to easy no-fault divorce laws, I'm not as mad as most of you are.

Why does everyone always act so surprised when they see "stories" like this? The thing on my mind is, how did you NOT see this coming, and of course, where do I sign up?

This is the whole point to "Going Galt". This guy is simply gaming on a system that is set up to encourage parasitism. Who can blame him? This is pretty much part of what Aaron Clarey urges you to do in "Enjoy the Decline". Why should I slave away in a cubicle to support a parasite like this? Why not be one? If the system is going to punish me for productivity, then screw it. I might as well stop playing. This system depends on people like me working hard, advancing in our careers, and paying lots of taxes as we advance into the ever increasing stratosphere of the progressive income tax pyramid.

For what? The pool of people like me is rapidly decreasing.

Sooner or later, the bill will come due for the system that encourages people like the Foodstamp Surfer. And by then, people like me will have found a way to join him. Without a productive class, sooner or later, the government will not be able to borrow from China or print more money to cover the parasite class. Then things will collapse.

And I'm not mad at Foodstamp Surfer. I see his game. He was smart. I'm mad at the system, and the non-math doing bleeding hearts who created and perpetuate it. I'm mad at the politicians who keep expanding it because free votes. I'm mad at the voters who have voted in a system where the majority has the most to gain at other's expense, instead of suffrage where the voters should be the ones who have the most to lose at other's expense.

Enjoy the decline!

ROK: HGTV Poisons Women's Minds

Return of Kings had an interesting post today about HGTV and women.

Having been a Realtor, and been married, and watched the housing shows on HGTV, I concur with their assessment.

I can't comment on the entire article, but here's the part that stood out to me the most:

4. Minimalism is not an option

 So you’ve signed away 30 years of your future and updated everything to remove the stink of the early 2000s. Now fill it with crap! Rooms designed by the Property Brothers and backyards on Yard Crashers are stuffed to the brim with useless trinkets. Every shelf needs to have fake books, every table needs to be draped with cloth, every open space needs to be filled. Do you have a wall without a picture hanging on it? You must be poor.

A constant, subversive theme here is that men’s desires don’t matter. When a couple has to make a decision, the woman typically gets her way. These shows often focus on wall-bound women searching for some societally-approved talisman of their status. Straight, unattached men are less likely to possess this elemental desire to buy more things and own more space than they can afford, rendering them bad investments as customers.

The whole concept of the "man cave" drives me nuts. The self-depreciating "man stupid primate; woman smart and noble" has gone too far and I want to see it eradicated in my lifetime.

As for the men who get excited over a "man cave", you're morons. You're a tenant on your own land. How well would it blow over if you told your woman "You can put your sewing machine on the kitchen table, but I want it removed before dinner"?

Whenever people ask me if I have a "man cave", I try to figure out the most polite way to say "No, because I'm not a flipping retard. Do you have a man cave? Should I talk slower? Should I just point and grunt? It's very nice of your wife to be so gracious and give you a shelf in your own house to put your football on. How kind of her."

I also have to grit my teeth in every House Hunters when the woman looks at a closet bigger than some apartments I've had and says to her "man" "Where are you going to put your stuff?" Yeah, so smart, witty, and original. I think if a woman said that to me, I'd reply "If you take that entire closet, I'll just throw my stuff on the floor on your side of the bed".

I'm still curious when the "American dream" became debt slavery. I am not in a hurry to own a house again for a LONG time.

Fox Misses The Point (Big Surprise)

There's a woman a lot of manosphere bloggers link to that goes by Dr. Helen. She recently wrote a book called "Men On Strike".

Fox covered it. At least, they mentioned it, and babbled on and on like typical cable news airheads.

One of them appeared to have at least read the book. At least, she had a quote from it.

Another had a clip from The Godfather, placing the intelligence of the segment somewhere below a post on Facebook.

I haven't read Dr. Helen's book, so I can't comment intelligently on it. I guess I may have to buy it.

Listening to the Fox anchors reminded my why I don't bother to watch television news.

One of the anchors, who probably didn't read the book, said: "Oh, you need to man up!" Rather than reading the book, just "man up".

See the problem is, most men want to man up. But the selection of women we have to choose from is very limited. It's very hard to come across a "nice" girl. It takes tons of effort and money and being shot down and sneered at just to get a single date. Then you can be flaked on, where she just doesn't show up, or doesn't return your calls. So there's no guarantee of a payoff. No reward. It's a Sisyphean task. When I read books and blog posts by guys like Roosh who talk about the hours and hours and probably hundreds of dollars they have to spend in bars and clubs just to get one girl into bed, I want to weep. Forget that.

That's just to get them into bed, which appears easier than the traditional route of trying to find one for a long term relationship/marriage.

Even if you do end up married and having children like I did, she can opt for the exit at any point. "I want a divorce". What about counseling? "No, I want a divorce". Just like that. She doesn't even need a reason. She just needs to want a divorce. Oh, and you have to pay for it. My ex-wife's uncontested divorce in New Jersey cost me $15,000. It would have been over $50,000 if we'd each had a lawyer. I consider it her divorce because I wanted to go to counseling and make it work.

This is why men are going "On strike". It's not because we want to look at pr0n and play video games all day (I don't even play video games). But hell, trying to find a decent woman is hard freaking work with practically no payoff. And a divorce guarantees the crippling of your economic viability, since close to or more than half of your paycheck now goes to her and the children. She even claims in NJ, she has a "right" to 65% of my income. That wouldn't give me enough to live on. I think I'd rather quit my job at that point, because there's no sense in working for nothing. Then I'd go to jail. Or I could flee the country, and never see my children again. No matter how you look at it, I lose just because of one cold hearted woman and a system that is set up against me. I "manned up". Look where it got me. So blow me, Fox News.

Aaron Clarey wrote a blog post a while back about pr0n economics. In it, he says that from an economic standpoint, women have priced themselves out of the market, forcing men to seek what in economic terms are called "substitute goods". If you want an apple but the grocery store is out of apples, you have the option to choose a substitute good such as an orange or peach.

So if you want a sweet, feminine woman, and your local society is out of them, then you go for a substitute good such as pr0n or a mail order bride. I'm becoming more convinced that western women are mostly a lost cause. Many are overweight, ill tempered, impatient, masculine, demanding, spoiled rotten, impossible to please, and a lot of other negative traits. And trying to find one that isn't is very hard work. Hard pretty much past the point of diminishing returns.

I'm pretty sure western civilization is in a period of decline. I don't believe it will come back. It will reconstitute at some point, but what we know is over. The best thing you can do is buy Aaron Clarey's "Enjoy The Decline" and follow the program:

Capital Flight

Aaron Clarey explains it:


It works like this: you have a business. You're probably located in a physical place like a state. Politicians in that state decide "Let's buy votes by taxing businesses". The taxes suddenly make it unprofitable to conduct your business. So what do you do?

Option 1: Shut your business down. Nobody operates a business to lose money. I don't know why politicians and voters don't seem to understand this.

Option 2: Move your business to a location without the onerous tax, where it is once again profitable to do business.

Either way, the politicians and voters lose. And they NEVER learn. Earlier this year or last year in France, they passed some high tax on the wealthy. And some of France's wealthiest citizens left the country. And the politicians and voters went apoplectic: "Th-th-th-th-ey ca-ca-ca-ca-n't-d-d-d-d-d-do-th-th-th-th-that!" Like there's some kind of rule that people just have to sit back and take this crap.

Whereas if they'd just left it alone, your business (or France's wealthiest) would stay in place, paying the existing taxes.

The parasite dies with the host. Some parasites maintain a balance where the host lives and by extension, the parasite lives too through the host. But some parasites get greedy, and end up killing the host. And the parasite cannot live without the host. Politicians and voters are the latter kind of parasite.

I personally think suffrage should be re-balanced to the point where those who vote have the most to lose, not the most to gain at somebody else's expense. Don't get mad at me. I doubt it will ever happen.

About Downloading A Car...

A while back, I dashed off a quick post about the recording industry's category error logical fallacy "You Wouldn't Download A Car, Would You?"

Well, this has become a meme unto itself. Behold (oh, yeah, language warning after the break):

So Who Has the Copyright?

A subject I'm gearing up to tackle is intellectual property (IP). I don't feel ready to engage this subject from an educated position yet. I've had several thoughts on it, but nothing I'd consider coherent or that I could present from a position of authority.

Stephan Kinsella's "Against Intellectual Property" is on my reading list for the near future. Like the majority of their great literature, it is available as a free download from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute.

Also available as a free download is a book I just became aware of, Michael Boldrin and David Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly".

Intellectual Property makes for an interesting subject. Physical property is one thing. If I am a producer of cars, a physical object, then I make the car and I sell the car to you. We can't both have the same car at the same time. This would violate logic and physics.

On Protest

I'm pretty well on record with what I think about changing your Facebook picture to show your support or "raise awareness" for a cause. I think it's retarded.

I'm in the middle of giving a friend of mine a bunch of crap because he blacked out his Facebook avatar to protest the President's visit to Colorado the other day. I've asked "Do you think it's going to hurt his feelings? Make him divert to Idaho?"

This is a really good friend of mine. The kind of guy you'd jump on a plane in the middle of the night and haul ass out to if he was in trouble. So it's a good natured sort of ribbing. But he's been exposed to my philosophical learning and I think he should know better.

Most activities of this type I believe are taken out of ignorance. I try to imagine how stupid or solipsistic somebody would have to be to think changing a picture or liking a status is going to change anything. I think in cases like my friend, whom I know is highly intelligent, it's more of a feeling of frustration or powerlessness.

Taking Leave To Work

I remember when my children were little, I would make semi-facetious comments like "I can't wait for Monday, when I can get back to work and relax a little". Like many of you, I am a knowledge worker. I get paid to work with my mind, and to type stuff and send emails and comments and stuff like that.

Since I got a Fitbit for Father's Day last year, I can see how if I didn't get up to walk around, I would move about 2 miles during work, most of that just getting in the building and getting water for coffee, head calls, and such, then back out to get a ride home.

So usually, when I have to use my vacation (leave), it's physically more exhausting than just staying at work.

I have to take the rest of this week to go back to New Jersey and get my yard ready for spring.

I'm loading up content on my iPhone to listen to while I work in the yard. Since Aaron Clarey doesn't have an RSS feed for his podcast, I downloaded his episodes and am manually importing them into Downcast.

This year, I have a very unique problem I've never dealt with before: use or lose. I've reached the maximum leave carry-over, so I have to burn about 3 weeks or I'll lose it. And they don't want you to lose it.

Of course, I have another unique problem called Sequestration, in which I'll lose a day a week of work and 20% of my pay for 6 months. I'm not complaining about the day, but the paycheck is going to hurt. You can help by buying the great books I recommend (or even the ones I don't) from my affiliate link. I have over 100 blog posts under my "book" label, so I'm sure there's something you'll love.

How Much of the Consumer Economy is Devoted to Women's Disposable Income?

I doubt I could find the relevant posts if I tried, but Aaron Clearey has written on this several times since I started following his blog and reading his books last year. In several of his posts, he's written how the majority (note: not all) women work in jobs that mostly facilitate other women to work in other jobs.

Somebody else once wrote (can't remember who) that a large portion of the consumer economy is devoted to women having disposable income.

I am not writing about whether this is right or wrong. At this point, I don't care. Something made me think about it recently.

Last time I was home in New Jersey, I took my wife to a Chinese buffet, then she needed to stop at a women's clothing store. I'm not very fond of following my wife around in women's clothing stores, so I began to look around for things to do other than sit in my car and read on my iPhone. As I surveyed the strip mall, I realized that just about every store there profited mostly from women having money to spend. The majority of the stores there were either women's clothing, accessories, household decorations and the like. There was a Sleep Number store, but I've already got one. There's a 5 Guys, but I already ate. There's a Moe's, but again, I already ate.

Fortunately, there was a Jos A Bank, so I stopped in and pondered WHAT THE HELL COULD POSSIBLY MAKE A PAIR OF BOXERS WORTH $25.I guess if you have to ask, you can't afford them. Tidy Whities, similar to the ones the Navy issued me in Boot Camp, are almost $40.It makes me wonder if most of Jos A Bank's profits come from women shopping for their men. (Disclosure: I have never bought anything from Jos A Bank. They have nice stuff, but I sure as hell don't have the disposable income to pay their prices. Somebody obviously does).

The problem with being in the disposable income retail business is, you're one of the first to go out of business when the economy tanks. How many vacant strip malls will be around when the tab for our societal Keynesian borrowing and spending binge comes due?

Enjoy The Decline?

I came across Aaron Clearey last year through a review of his book "Worthless". I've since read Worthless and "Behind the Housing Crash", where he shares his experiences working as a credit analyst in midwestern banks during the housing bubble.

I decided to get his book "Enjoy the Decline". He signs off just about every blog post with that line. I had trouble with it at first. Not with him using the line, but with the concept of enjoying the decline. I'm an American, and watching all this unsustainable crap that's been in place for decades come crashing down makes me sad. But there's nothing I can do about it, other than make sure it doesn't come crashing down on me; at least any more than it already has.

So I bought the book, and hope to learn to "Enjoy the Decline". I'll post a review when I'm done.