One can’t actually fight a shadow. It’s a mathematical impossibility based on the trajectory of sunlight. A more accurate way to phrase it would be based on the earth rotation, although stating it the other way conveys the message reasonably well. I hear things in my mind. I am long past the point of being worried about that given the extraordinary amount of years that have passed within the years that have passed. Yesterday I heard something whose gist was something like this: “Once you fully understand how the human body is designed you’ll see why the designer had a very amusing sense of humor.” This was after I had typed something about menstruation, yet the voices weren’t alluding to only that. The whole thing is a really funny joke apparently. I didn’t ask but should have… did they mean ontology, epistemology, perception, sensuality, ego, immune systems, reproductive systems, organ failure, aging or what exactly? My consciousness flickers when I’m asleep. Maybe that’s the joke - sleep, dreams, thoughts, moods, feelings, love, chemicals, (bro)(ro)mance… muscles, bones, capillaries, blood that is at times red, white and blue…
Apparently that’s not the joke to simply list out what makes a human body tick. The jokes might be actually funny messages embedded into DNA, the way the brain is designed and so on. Almost as if saying do you think jokes too are random mutations? Even tiny bacteria have incredible adaptability. I proved it to myself over a few days. Bacteria from yogurt went from making perfect yogurt to making decent cheese. I simply changed the environment and the medium but I did it incrementally. That’s not a yoghurt farmer who changed to a cheese culturer — it’s a bacterium. Intelligence then is not simply thought or thinking — some of it is hard wired into processes. And the hardwiring is soft because adaptability itself is a form of intelligence.
No one quite understands what the global current account surplus actually is. Since we don’t deal with other planets, per Google, not yet per Musk, there ought not to be a global current account surplus. The ledger ought to balance. Yet over decades the global current account surplus has always been a surplus. If something is consistently a surplus can it be used? Can I monetize it? Meaning this… in a small business there is AR and AP. The bank ledger notes cash coming in and cash going out. And the accounting ledger might say 1000 dollars went out and 1000 dollars came in and therefore cash that can be used is 0. Yet the banking ledger might always show a balance of a 1000. So… can that 1000 be used? Better yet can it be leveraged? Can I go to a finance shop and say “hey man, I got like a 1000 bucks that’s always lying around regardless of AP and AR. Can you loan me a leveraged 10x on that?” So the 1000 becomes 10K. Then the important thing is how much did the leverage cost me? 2%? I can then buy US Treasuries at 5% and make a spread of 3% on 10K. All from money I never had.
You will note that the US (shown in red) is the world’s largest oil exporter but it’s always running a deficit. You know there is a problem when even the official trade numbers don’t reconcile. The actual deficit the US runs (mainly with China, although there are other countries) is likely much higher. And we’ve tried to posit that here at Sentient Musings. This is the United States sending its actual capital to the rest of the world, year in and year out — this is not the treasure we lose when we fight wars — the trillions spent on not rebuilding Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other places are their own sort of leaky buckets.
Yet shadows and graphs don’t mean much. In order for it to mean anything, the opposite query must be posed. What would it mean for the United States to run a consistent surplus? What is the opportunity cost of not running such a surplus? If Trump loves the word “tariff” I am the diametric opposite, love the words “opportunity cost”.
Opportunity cost is simple terms is just this: “could have dated her but didn’t ask.”
In real terms, it means something more substantial: in wartime, it lives that could have lived, children that could have been born from those lives as an example. In peacetime what could we have done with the capital we didn’t send overseas?
And the usual argument an economist like to make is “well they have cheaper labor, cheaper energy, cheaper land, cheaper everything. It makes sense to produce things where everything is cheaper. We should send our capital overseas and build factories over there.” Or we could let them build factories for us. I mean eventually every country will start making their own stuff that we make in their country. We could start a semiconductor plant in Taiwan but the Taiwanese will eventually start making it themselves as a vague example. Now we are not just sending capital to Taiwan, we are also reliant on Taiwan. What began as a desire to make things cheaply becomes an addiction, and junkies know one thing… their dealer is God. So it doesn’t actually surprise me that weed and sports gambling have been legalized and then videos from Wiz and Snoop promoting the habit have also been legalized.
But sure Sir, make plans to fight Iran yet again with our ally. Best President ever.
Really? Pharrell, Wiz and Snoop have all done dope tracks?
