The April Fools of the US equity market in the Year of our Lord, 2025

 I don't give investment advice to friends. I don't care about the outcome enough to stay engaged, the personal payoff structure is asymmetrical. Family is different. Them, I try to keep out of the ditch, if they ask. 

The market fell off sharply as our President has become enamored with a tax called a tariff. Markets will tolerate a modest hike in taxes, but not on the scale he is proposing. 

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, badly. Never sell out of US stocks. Never. Never. Never. 

Buy when the market is rising, buy when it is falling, buy when it is flat. Never, never sell. Buy when a President is healthy, buy when one is assassinated. Buy when oil is plentiful, buy when there is a shortage. Buy when there is no cure for a terrible virus. Buy when a vaccine is developed. Buy when you love the President, buy when you don't. Buy when you're sober, buy when you're not. Buy when there is war, when there is rumor of war, when there is peace. Buy when your dog dies, when your cat dies (especially), when your Uncle Wayne dies.

Granted there are times when one should sell everything, go to cash, wait for clarity. Ask CNBC or Fox Business they see it all the time. Having been born in 1956 I have yet to see such a day. 

What so many people fail to realize is our emotions act in an opposite fashion of real things. 

When the market falls we percieve (feel) that risks are going up, we feel this is bad. In reality the risks are going down. The opposite is true when stocks are rising. 

This was true in 1929 and will still be true in 2029. True in 1974, will be true in 2074. 

In case I am all wrong. Keep a few cartons of Marlboros and some bottles of Jack Daniels in your basement. I think I have about four of each. When the social order completely breaks down, when the gas pumps are dry and the shelves are bare at Food Lion, these two things will always have value and can be exchanged for passage across the border into Canada or Mexico. 

The best two sentences in "A Gentleman in Moscow"

 "...just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest thing. "

from the chapter "Ascending, Alighting", page 253. 

Bookends of Life

 I am a hospice volunteer and I am a Grandfather. Thus, I spend a lot of time with the very young and the very old. The struggles of their lives seem at times similar, though that is not real.  

I want that glass of water that I see across the room. How do I get it?

I understand what you just said to me. I want to reply but I don't know the words. Or, I know the words but cannot make my mouth say them. 

I should go to the bathroom. Too late. I am embarrassed or ashamed to tell you. 

I miss that person who comes to my room. Where is he? Will she be back today? 

I wait in my room until someone takes me somewhere and tells me what to do. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't. 

It seems to you quite boring that I spend so much time staring out the window. I am learning, retaining, not retaining, thinking. thinking. 

The single best sentence in Anna Karenina

 "Then it was that he first clearly understood what he did not realize when leading her out of the church after the wedding: that she was not only very close to him but that he could not now tell where she ended and he began." Volume II, Part V, Chapter XIV.

I suppose that after 20 or so years of marriage I would have understood this line. But after forty six years I can begin to relate to it. Begin. Deeper than understanding. 

It was well worth a thousand pages of this great novel to find this little jewel of prose.  

The neck tells no lies

 A conversation with my four year old grandson, Ben. Christmas 2024. 

Ben: Grandad, why do you have that turkey thing on your neck. 

Me: That's because I'm getting old. 

Ben: You ARE old. 

Me: Yes I am, I guess. 

Ben: Why do you have that turkey thing on your neck?

Me: When you get old your skin gets loose. 

Ben: But why do you have it?

Ben: You're old. 

Me: Someday you'll have one and maybe your grandson will ask you why. 

Ben: (laughs) Un Uh!

The Cities of 2024

 Not a long list, but a fun one. A very good year for travel. Below is any city where I  spent the  night. 

Victoria, MN
Webster Groves, MO
Minneapolis, MN
Quincy, IL
Amsterdam, NL
Cologne, DE
Miltenburg, DE
Regensburg, DE
Vienna, AT
Budapest, HU
Duluth, MN
Steubenville, OH
Omaha, NE
Bloomington, IL
Nashville, TN
Roan Mountain, TN
Mount Pleasant, SC

Kissimee, FL

The Books I read in 2024

 Below are the books I read in 2024. Those with an asterisk were excellent and I would read again.  

Perhaps the most surprising book of the year was the memoirs of General Sherman. I did not expect the prose of a Civil War general, written 150 years ago, to be so clear and meaningful.  

The biggest waste of time was the Time Chain series by Decker. I kept thinking it would get better but it never did. Time travel paradox, etc etc. Imagine you're 19, in love, and traveled into the future. You meet the one you love, who is now 70ish.Would you still  be in love? Hardly. Yet it happens here. Waste of time. 

The Graham mysteries were very nice though only the Brits can take a whole page to describe a handful of flowers along a sidewalk. Nice murder plots but skip the gardening minutae. . 

Villians of the Early Church: And How they made us better Christians - Aquilina
The Killings at Badger's Drift - Graham
Calming the Storm - Murray/Montagna
The Death of a Hollow Man - Graham
The Dogma of Hell - Schowppe
A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward - Martin
A Place of Safety - Graham
Charles Taylor and Liberia - Waugh
Witness - Chambers*
Clement of Rome & The Didache: A New Translation and Theological Commentary - Howell
Ghost in the Machine - Graham
Death in Disquise - Graham
Faithful unto Death - Graham
Facing Ali: 15 Fighters, 15 Stories - Brunt*
The Last Don - Puzo
The Wright Brothers - McCullough*
The Racketeer - Grisham
The Big Short (4th reading) - Lewis
Sparring Partners - Grisham
The Razor's Edge - Maugham*
White Fragility (4th Reading) - DiAngelo
Defenders of the West: Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam - Ibrahim
Time Chain - Decker
The Balance of Time - Decker
Addicted to Time - Decker
The Road - McCarthy
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House - Meacham
Deadly Declarations - Wade
The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power - Rady
Will to Murder: The Crimes and Trials Surrounding the Glensheen Murders - Feichtinger
Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with J. F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis and A. Huxley - Kreeft*
The Laws of Brainjo: The Art and Science of molding a musical mind - Turknett (Second Reading)
Genesis: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary - Ray*
The Eucharist Foretold: The Lost Prophecy of Malachi - Aquilina
The Holy Bible (13th or so reading): NRSVCE*
Too Pretty to LIve: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee - Brooks
A Pope and A President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century - Kengor*
Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize - Grillo
With the Old Breed - Sledge*
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Orczy
Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman - Sherman*

Closer to the Abyss

The latest election moved us closer to an abyss. Not so much because of who won, as both candidates were nudging us further along. will there will come a time, next week, next decade next century when it all comes tumbling down? Hope not. 

the citizens want more stuff. Best I can figure about 70% of the voters this month wanted more government, regardless of party label.  

we support wars, certainly the just ones and cry cry cry that we defend freedom. (but not if I have to  pay for it. not if my taxes go  up) I believe it was JFK who said "the cost of freedom is high, but Americans have always paid the price". Not true. 

we want taxes lower on ourselves though most citizens pay little, if any, federal taxes. 

Everything would be better if only "the rich" paid their "fair share". 

i want to hear a citizen ask that the nation to stop doing things for them. stop giving me this benefit, this toy, this trinket. stop trying to buy my loyalty. 

"stop taxing social security" No, tax it more. 

"stop taxing tips" That one is laughable, and not worth a retort. 

"tariff this and tariff that". You will destroy the whole world economy. 

 

Life on the Eights

 Last week I became 68 years old. Three score and eight. My grandaddy always said "I just want my three score and ten, like it says in the Bible" He got a lot more than that.

Anyway, looking back on the eights, here goes. Roughly as I told it to my kids and their kids after blowing out 68 candles (true). 

When I was eight it was 1964. I lived in Pensacola.  3rd grade. Had a younger brother who was almost six, and a new baby brother. I think my dreams/plans in life were vaguely to 1) be a good Christian 2) Have a good family 3)Not be poor 4)Be somebody. 5) Play for the New York Yankees. Simple difficult goals. 

When I was 18 it was 1974 and I had graduated from HS and moved to St. Petersburg Florida. Sacked groceries at Publix in the Northeast Shopping Center. Started college in early 75. 

From 74-84 I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. Sold Bibles and kids books door to door. Sacked groceries. Ran a gas station at night. Maintenance crew and dining room crew in college. Landscaping. Day Camp Counselor. Sold Iinsurance. Sold Investments. 

In 1984 I was 28 and one of the toughest periods of my life, thus far, was over. The Dark Years were past. I had written my last hot check. There was a little money in the bank and I owned my first house. Finally found something I could do, which was investment stuff. Started by selling it, later managed it. I was married and my oldest child was four. This was the year I paid off my $2000 student loan, $30 at a time. Doesn't seem like much until you're three months behind and the college is getting ready to turn you over to a collection agency. I was very involved in numerous political campaigns. 

In 1994 I was 38 and lived in St. Louis. My wife Robin and I now have three children. Daughter 14, son 8, daughter 2. A good happy time. My maternal grandparents and my parents were still alive. I had earned a difficult professional designation and had some letters after my name on my business card. Since 1984 a man I knew had been elected President and I had been a delegate to the national convention of our shared political party. Robin and I went to a Christmas party at the White House.  Around this time I stopped my political stuff and focused on family and career. The Soviet Union, that nemesis that had me scurrying under my desk in grammar school, was no more

In 2004 I was 48 and lived in Minneapolis. Career events I did not anticipate sent me north. It was wonderful, eventually. By this time my grandparents and my father had died. My oldest daughter was in Law School. my son was in college and my youngest daughter was in middle school. I was traveling a lot for work and for a professional organization of the investment world. 

In 2014 I was 58 and lived outside Minneapolis, on a lake and thinking about retirement. My son was married and I was a grandfather. My youngest brother had just finished year one of a five year war against cancer. 

In 2024 I am 68. My three children are all happily married. I have 5 grandchildren. I am even more happily married than my children for I have been able to convince a wonderful woman to stay with me for 45 years!!! I have joined the Catholic Church. I am retired. I play the banjo. My youngest brother has died of cancer (One might say the cancer beat him. Welcomed into the glory of his heavenly Father, I doubt he would put it that way.) As I write this I am canning green beans from my garden. 

College Football. Weekend Two

 It feels odd. Watching employees of the State of Michigan play football against employees of the State of  Texas. Doesn't sound much fun does it? The day is early but all the lead-up to this seems out of place, out of time. 

The old conference structure is gone. Replaced by one that will not last nearly as long as the one it replaced. 

Money has a way of pushing things around. It disrupts, in both good ways and bad. The employees will make demands. The marketplace will make demands. The state will make concessions, for a time. 

Will we still be able to pretend this is "best for the student-athelete"? Probably not. 

Then it will blow up. 

On the street

I see cargo trailers and pickup trucks in front of a house on the street. 

Furniture is loaded into trailers as it is carried out of the house. Perhaps it belonged to one of the people who lived there. 

A man and a woman once lived there together. They don't anymore. They decided to stop having lives in the same building. So they didn't really live together, they sort of declined together. 

On the side of a trailer is the name of a wedding planning company. 

The Thing: What I saw in Nashville

 A hobo on a park bench reading The Wizard of OZ. 

Some boots owned by Hank Williams Sr.

The grave of Johnny Paycheck