When you put a sign out front and offer items for sale it is not like Aunt Queena and Uncle Libby coming to visit. Strangers in your driveway are not guests - they are customers. They want to buy your junk cheap and get down the street to the next sale. If they wanted to pay retail they would be at the mall. You are not a celebrity - a common item has no value enhancing providence because you have owned it. Strangers deserve a minimum of courtesy - that means you don't close talk with beer breath or BO nor share your cigarette or cigar up close and personal. You keep your children from pawing them and your dog from humping their leg. They are not there to be signed up for a Tea Party or invited to your church. They have no desire if they are sane to buy weak warm lemonade in your dingy Tupperware glasses from your offspring sitting there picking his nose. If you put everything you wish to get rid of out with no price and then suddenly have seller's remorse and jack the price up in your mind because anyone shows an interest in it you defeat your purpose. If you don't sit with a cash box or wear an apron don't be surprised if some enterprising fellow accepts money on your behalf. Don't ask us if we know what that item would bring on eBay because you obviously don't have the mentality to fill out an auction listing form or you would know what it would bring on eBay already. And lastly - if you have nothing but chipped, faded, pilled, worn and non-working crap do us all a favor and rent a dumpster not have a garage sale.

(Puts on Seer's Turban and a serene face.)

I predict - GM will go into bankruptcy the last week of May and save the money paid out to most of the workers laid off for the planned 9 weeks. They might bulk at doing that but the government would have no problem directing them to do so.

I also think that if - as is likely - Chrysler also goes bankrupt that many of the suppliers will not be there to resume the fragile just-in-time supply scheme these companies use. We may see the shut down extended for months or in some cases forever. Nobody has ever tried doing such a vast complex bankruptcy and I can see some snags developing easily. All you need is for ONE critical part not to be available and you can't build the vehicle.

A great deal of how that works out depends on externals. If people are still not buying it doesn't matter how small they become - they won't have the sales to become profitable. They really need to become half as big or even smaller and the corporate culture can't envision or accept such a radical change. Given unemployment is still growing and there is a strong deflationary trend I can't see them succeeding. Add in a possible flu pandemic and/or worldwide food shortage that will interfere with normal commerce and they are screwed.

(I suppose it needs a separate post but don't feel like it - The wheat crop in the US Southern Plains and in India are going to be poor. The Chinese are concerned because they have had a drought in the north. They are doing a physical inventory because it appears many storage facilities may have sold off grain and stolen the money. Both India and China suffer from insane policies. China does not pay their storage facilities enough to make money without cheating. India forces sales to the government but will take grain in any condition - then stores it in the open piles with a tarp thrown over it. They often spend more to dispose of rotten grain than they did trying to store it.)

Please be aware there is a local flu epidemic in Mexico.
It is a H1N1 new variation that has elements of American and European swine flu, human flu, and avian flu.
It is a very efficient air transmitted flu with clusters visible in mapping along transportation vectors. The head of the CDC already acknowledged it is too late to contain it by shutting off the border. There were 8 cases in the US with no fatalities last I checked this morning.
Best reports from Mexico indicate about 1,000 cases with 60 fatalities.
Morbidity concentrates atypically with healthy adults 25 to 45 hit particularly hard. This is typical of a flu that kills by provoking a damaging immune response rather than by secondary infection.
In many respects it is similar to the Great Flu of 1918.
It changes nature very easily - which means it can become less dangerous as easily as worse. If it follows the pattern of that historic flu you can expect it will manifest in waves of a few months each with varying qualities in each wave. The 1918 variety also had near 100% morbidity for pregnant women.
We are at a WHO level 3 alert right now. If it goes to a level 4 many international corporations and organizations automatically start an internal response that has been planned out well ahead. You will see some employees withdrawn home or told to work from home. Some organizations will shut down their public operations. Schools colleges and places of public assembly such as museums have been shut down in Mexico.
Other countries may ban travel from North America. Japan has a worst case plan that calls for allowing all but two cities to be closed to air travel and three harbors to ships.
You should have enough food/fuel at home for several weeks and salt and sugar and baking soda to make re-hydrating fluid.
I also keep masks and gloves for what small use they may have if you simply must go out for something when an epidemic is local.
Edited to add: It is late in the season for this to spread well. It may be it will be like 1918 when there was a brief flurry of cases in March of that year and then it had a huge resurgence when weather conditions again favored it in the fall. If so give thanks you have all year to prepare.

Getting old is frustrating because you have the insight to do things your body will no longer allow you to pursue. In Michigan we have the right to introduce changes to the state constitution by referendum. It is a process that requires intense activity and clear communications. There is a limited time frame to gather a set number of signatures to force an issue on the ballot, and the proposal must be clear and limited or the courts will joyfully put it aside.
I'd very much like to organize a proposal that the state constitution be altered so that no real estate in which a citizen actually resides may be taxed or subject to any lien or fee which can result in the resident being evicted or imprisoned.
I would not try to formulate what would replace it. That's what we pay our reps in the state government to do. Let them figure it out. Trying to make a proposal too complex will reduce signatures and give the courts more leverage to disallow it.
I had a Greek lady object to the American system of property taxes. In Greece your home is off limits to being seized. As she said - "In America you never own your house; you just rent it from the government." Indeed in Greece they will allow you TWO houses before they are subject to taxation. I've come to agree with her.
Surely with all the economic troubles in Michigan people would see the advantage of being secure in their home? Seniors on fixed income in particular would sign I believe.
It also would likely cure the problem of huge disparities between districts as funding would likely become statewide instead of local. But that is for the legislature to decide.
I'm 61 with limited mobility and profoundly hard of hearing. I just don't have the energy to pursue such a difficult contest. If any of you want to take it up go for it. The same idea should fly in any state with the right of referendum.

Liberals are themselves conditioned to accept almost anything if it part of what is required of them to be part of their group. They really believe in this collective guilt.
What that mind set leaves them unable to understand is they have inch by inch gotten closer to a line they can't see.
There is a point past which they may soon go that even the most patient and law abiding conservative will not let go.
There was an example of this here recently.
An old man - 80 something - who had two women move in next door to him.
They were living as lovers but that was none of his business.
What was his business was they were horrible neighbors - complaining about his yard and how he kept it and insisting his hedges obstructed their view and wanting them trimmed down.
They harassed and mocked his age and his manhood when he went out to work in the yard.
One day when he had driven away they went over and cut the offending bushes off flush to the ground.
When he got home he loaded his rifle and went next door and shot both of them dead.
All the relatives could yap about to the press was how the women were shot for being 'strong women' and how society can't take the threat of women having power.
Typical liberal bullshit.
Being a strong man in society is not about having the power to treat your neighbors like shit.
That is not the model to follow to be a 'strong woman'.
The truth was he'd have gone next door and shot a conventional couple or a single man who did what these women did.
It wasn't about who they were. It was about taking his property rights for a house he'd lived in 50 some years. It was about a complete lack of respect for him as a human being.
Really he paid them the deepest respect he could show them.
He held them to the same standards he would a man when he was from a generation taught to show extra consideration to a woman.

I think the Democrats are about to cut our bushes down.

I have to admit I am tired of the way reporters stare so seriously into the camera in their after closing market report and say WHY the market moved up or down today.
It's always in response to some government report or fear of inflation or uneasiness over some political nonsense.
How refreshing it would be to have one say - "We have no idea why the market crashed today. The traders were running back and forth in a panic like a drunk on fire at a BBQ. Damned if it made any sense to anyone with a brain. And God only knows what they will do tomorrow given the irrational roller coaster today."
When they start predicting instead of back-filling and have a success rate over 55% then I'll take all this jaw flapping seriously. Until then my BS meter pegs over on high as soon as they get past the naked numbers.

Not so long ago, within living memory anyway, Americans had a minor but odd conceit. Bundled in among their Puritan work ethic and chivalrous behavior from commoners was a smug disdain for corrupt officials. Americans did not have to pay extra on the side to have a telephone installed or to get prompt treatment at a hospital. Sweaty olive skinned officials with thin mustaches and shifty eyes who went on about how difficult their jobs were while holding their hand out were a staple of foreign adventure films. The audience was supposed to find them comically contemptible. Americans were even regarded as naive because they were so used to honest officials that they didn't understand the ritual dance of asking for and receiving a bribe. They were as likely to grab a hand smoothly laid palm up to receive a bribe and pump it in pleased commeraderie as to line it with the proper Bashish. This was even enshrined in law so that American businesses were deemed criminal if they engaged in the normal pattern of bribing foreign officials for contracts. It was so bumpkinish sophisticated people like the French and Japanese just rolled their eyes or hid their smirks behind their hand at the silly childishness of it all.
Well no more.
The highest agency in the public eye, the caretaker of the nation's business has shown us all, shown the world, that they are ready to play on the world stage.
Congress stood firm and refused to act even if, as they were told, it meant the absolute collapse of the economy if they didn't get their cut. Not content with pumping $700 Billion into the financial industry that reaches every state they held out until another $100 Billion plus was ponied up to line their pockets. In time they may find out that the fast talkers who rammed the bail out bill through may have run a sharper sting than a mere $100 Billion tack-on. But that is to be seen, for now they made every telephone installer who needed an extra $100 to make it happen, or consular clerk who needed a $50 'service fee' to process that visa look like pikers. Hell, they may have out-grabbed the new Czar-like leaders of Russia or the greed of the traditional African war lord.
Since countries just like companies have a culture that comes from the top down, be ready for the shift in behavior. We can't be too far from the day that America finally 'grows up' to the same weary acceptance of slipping a little something to the zoning board or the traffic cop that is just a part of every day life in most of the world.

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson

Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. All is guaranteed with full confidence.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check to help you.

We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Hurry, don't miss this opportunity.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson

I live in the heart of auto country - Oakland county outside Detroit, Mi. Home to the majority of auto executives and the headquarters of Chrysler.
I'm so tired of the Detroit papers telling me I am a stinking pile of shit if I am white, heterosexual, and drive a foreign car.
Truth is I drive a Chrysler LHS and a GMC pickup. But I have owned Hondas and I have made molds and tooling for Honda before I retired.
The Detroit papers lump all foreign name plate cars under imports even if they are assembled in the US with a majority of US made parts. They mysteriously fail to do that for US name cars even if they are 90% foreign made or even made outside the country entirely - which is true of the Ford Crown Vic. which is the country's favorite cop car.
Such blatant hypocrisy and favoritism is usually reserved for politics.
Now these auto makers want a bail out. It must be tearing them up to see all the billions flowing to the screw-ups in the banking industry and nothing to them, so they want a piddly little 25 Billion:

Us too! Us too!

Leaving aside that GM alone will burn through 25 Billion in less than a year - the alternative is they could make cars people want. The papers again say constantly how the US makers have caught up or almost caught up to the Japanese. Yet it is always the Japanese who are offering things like hybrids at the dealer while the US makers are still working on theirs. How about for once getting AHEAD of the foreign makers? How about offering something without a doubt better instead of just as good or damn near?
Why do they refuse to make the nice little cars you see in Europe for the US? And if they do when absolutely forced to - like the Smart Car - the US version gets worse mileage than the European version when it already meets all the emission tests. Why does my 1999 Chrysler get worse mileage than the 1994 with the same engine? And the new ones get even worse? They are going the wrong way!
I'm starting to think if you dug deep enough you'd find the same people who own the auto companies own the oil companies and don't want to introduce better mileage cars and ruin their market for gas.

In the early morning I laid awake in bed and did some serious thinking. There is something I believe I have not been able to articulate. And something that I don't believe in I have not been able to isolate. Now I can.

I'm not a political person, not even a patriotic person. I have seen lots of decent people who had great affection for their homelands and felt their governments treated them fairly. Given some of the hellholes on Earth like Zimbabwe they can feel that way without undue optimism.

Yet I have a tremendous respect for the United States not for what it has done or even what it is doing, which may be at odds with what I personally think is proper or wise. I have huge respect for the United States because of the abstract principles upon which it is founded. Just as Christianity is to be admired more for the correctness of it's tenants than the execution of those rules by those claiming its name. Many of those principles happen to be the same without going into whether that makes the US a 'Christian nation'. For example Christ gave no doubt that he saw private property rights as an absolute. When he spoke of the Master of the Vineyard paying the part timers a full wage in generosity he said to objections: "Can I not do as I please with my own things?" It was put forth as a basic principle beyond challenge. People try to label him a collectivist because the early Christians sometimes pooled resources and supported each other to advance their ministry. Yet if you read it carefully they did so voluntarily and no judgment was made against one not joining in such an arrangement - only in being false to their pledge if they swore and them held back. Similarly the rebellion against the British was very much about property and taxation. No other right is secure unless your property is secure. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech mean nothing if someone can yank the bread out of your mouth for exercising them.

I want to make two points about those rights and how we view them today.

First the Declaration of Independence spoke more more clearly and emotionally about what the founders believed than later documents such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Declaration was more - 'This is what we believe.' - and the later documents - 'This is how we will make it happen.' The Declaration speaks more from the heart and in some ways clearer. Would that it were considered part of the Constitution to be sworn upon.

They said: "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

Today we have people - even highly placed attorneys in government saying that the rights protected in the Constitution are different rights than the ones the Declaration had commended, and do not apply to people not Americans because the words of the Declaration were not repeated in the Constitution. This is simply immoral and wrong. If those rights are God given and inalienable then they apply to all men just as the Declaration said. They are not granted remember. They are not given by some sort of license, be it a cloak of citizenship or any other division of "all men". To deny these universal rights is simply to say we don't really believe the basic ideals of our nation. It is to say we really believe all AMERICANS are created equal which is a much different thing, and would imply all Americans are superior to their fellow men since that is the way it actually works when we deny them their God given rights.

Why didn't the Constitution and the Bill of Rights state explicitly that those rights applied to foreigners? For the same reason the bible gives instruction to Christians but doesn't say - Oh, these rules apply to pagans as well. Because the Constitution is speaking about the practical details of how government is to be organized, and the how the power of government over the people will be limited. It is law, not the philosophy behind it. It simply does not address how the government should treat others not under it's power except collectively by well established customs of treaty and law with other governments.

It would have been the hight of hubris to say anything about foreigners over whom the power of the new state did not extend, but that is not license or invitation to drop every moral principle in our dealings where it is not explicitly commanded. By comparison again the Bible tells Christians how they should organize the church and comport themselves. They don't say others should do the same because their authority does not extend over them. Yet nowhere do you find where the scripture are talking principles instead of organization that it is Okay to cheat and lie and murder unbelievers. (unlike certain other religious texts) Instead when good behavior is preached we see phrases such as "Let your reasonableness be known to ALL MEN." - Not just your brothers in faith.

So my first point is this. We can not be true to the moral basis of the revolution by treating fellow Americans with honor and respect as persons having God given rights and then treat foreigners as not having these rights and being subject to arrest and imprisonment and forfeiture of their property at our whim because they are outside our law. It really is all men who own such rights or we are hypocrites. It's not a question of law. It's a question of morality. If you say too bad I can legally do this even if it is immoral - well - you can often say that of things the law doesn't cover - but what sort of man does that make you? Treating all others as outlaws - in the literal old meaning of the word - will come back and bite you on the butt.

The second point I want to make is this. I have heard the President of the United States quoted as saying the Constitution is simply a piece of paper. I haven't seen any denials so I have to credit that. Certainly it is a serious enough matter to have wanted to address since his oath is to that Constitution. I have to wonder if the Bible under his hand when he took the oath is just a pile of paper also? Does he value any of the principles in either document or are they all just inconvenient and outdated obstacles to the exercise of power? Does anybody take it seriously today? Or are oaths a silly relic?

The basis of both the best qualities of Christian behavior and the ideals of the American revolution are the worth and dignity of the individual. I fear that few really believe in either today. The tendency is to simply ignore the Constitution, not by having it repealed or going to the effort of adding amendments, but by simply acting outside it's limits as long as nobody with real power objects. The individual is now constrained by a web of not just laws, but a maze of regulations that have the same power as law, that the Constitution never enumerated. The rest of the powers not given to the government were to have been held for the people. These undelegated powers have been stolen with such stunning reach under the color of law that the individual can be crushed, and most shrug and say there is nothing to be done for it. Just as an example - A man can not grow wheat for his own use on his own land except by leave of the government because it can effect interstate commerce. What can you put your hand to that doesn't effect interstate commerce? So by that logic they can permit or stop literally any work, any commerce you wish to undertake. There are no limits except by their charity. There are thousands of laws and regulations like that that fly in the face of what our government was INTENDED to be. (Just as Christendom is not what it was intended to be - but that's another rant.)

It's not that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not understood. It's not even they that are not known sufficiently. The problem is that they are not believed any more. They are not valued. Many take an oath to uphold the Constitution, but it might as well be with a wink. It might as well be followed by the person giving the oath add:
'And we'll be the ones to tell you what it means."

The Constitution seems to fall under the same curse as the Bible. The men who honor it as an ideal are too small of stature to actually follow it. If seems the way any ideal goes. It took Christianity about three centuries for people to say - "This is too tough, we can't follow such a selfless and noble way of life without making room for some good old fashioned behind the scenes corruption and selfishness." The American Revolution looks to be right on the timetable for ditching it's principles too. Those that actually try to follow either are viewed as extremists and dreamers.

So do I have a solution? No, I can't change the tide of human events. But I can do what I personally know is right, and I won't buy the kool-aid that all morality is relative and there are no absolutes. The older I get the more I value kind over smart. Whether you believe in 'Karma' or 'What you reap you will sow." or "What goes around comes around." it matters what you believe and what that belief makes you do. It's better to have things you know are right with conviction than to have lists of what you can get away with.

I leave it as an exercise for you to consider how this should affect how you personally treat foreigners, and how you want your government to act as your agent in doing so.