October 2008

Since you last heard from me, six months ago, I’ve been busying myself with all sorts of things, but first let me reassure anxious readers that I really am alive and well. And at the age of 77, being alive and well trumps just about anything else.

With Helge Pedersen at the BMW rally in Gillette, Wyoming

This last summer (Ah, those lazy months of innocence) I was all over the American heartland – Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Ohio, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico and everywhere in between.
With my invaluable Toyota pick-up (the best vehicle ever built) I carted my books around and showed pictures to anyone who would look at them.

I also had a companion to decorate my life, a lovely lady from Ukraine who helped to mind the booth while I was showing off somewhere else.

Many people assumed she was my wife and told me how happy they were for me. In truth there was a time when I hoped she would be, but even though our government is convinced that any Ukrainian would kill for a chance to live in America, here is one Ukrainian who cannot be torn from her country and, alas, I cannot function over there, so now Lida is back where she belongs, and I have bought a tractor to console myself.

Ted’s consolation

We had a very good time. She saw 6000 miles of America, came very close to a buffalo, walked on the beach in Chicago and fell in love with the doorman of the Seneca Hotel, drove through hell fire in California, dined in St Louis, survived a dramatic electrical storm in Gillette which almost brought our tent down, and came to like Americans more than she expected to, even though they are too fat.
Now that we are plunged into economic chaos and a world-wide food crisis, it would be nice if an unintended consequence led to a slimming of America, but I suspect that our bellies will be our citadels, to be defended to the last.

Of course this whole collapse was bound to happen. I am only one of many who saw it coming.
About 4 years ago I sold some land and had a bit of money left over. Wealthy neighbours advised me to talk with a mortgage broker in Santa Rosa, a boom town north of San Francisco. He told me that he could indeed lend my money out as a second mortgage at 12%, a wonderful return, but then he added, “The real money is in the late fees.”

I recoiled at the idea of having to deal with people who were hanging on by their fingernails to a house they couldn’t afford. It was all too obvious, when I thought about it, that the bubble would have to burst, but I didn’t know all the ramifications (Who did? Who does?)
Some people profess to be interested in my point of view about larger matters, so I’m going to give it, even if it does cost me book sales. Here to start with is a basic observation about the ‘bail-out”.

The money managers – the people supposedly responsible for this mess – work for companies (banks, insurance agencies, mortgage brokers, funds, or all the above rolled into one) and according to the dictates of capitalism (which is next to God) their job is to make money for their shareholders.
Assuming they obey the law (some don’t, but that’s another matter) they can do what they like, and if they see opportunities for creating more and more fanciful ways for making one buck look like two bucks or ten bucks or a hundred bucks, so that they can bring in more and more profit lending out money they don’t have, then who can blame them?

Well, that’s the question. Who? Do they have a moral obligation to anticipate the crash? Is that an ingredient of capitalism? I don’t think so

So the moral obligation has to be enshrined in law, or in other words, regulations. Now we are promised more regulation, which is good.
But listen, people! Who has all the incentive, the means, and the expertise for finding ways to beat the regulations?
Those same people we are attempting to regulate? Who’s going to win? They are, given just a bit of time.
That’s it, folks. You want your capitalism, then take your medicine, every ten years or so, like it says on the label.
Of course there is a way to be protected. Instead of watching the ads inciting us to buy more and more stuff, and instead of responding to the banks who want us to take on more and more credit, we could be learning how to live a fruitful and rewarding life on what we’ve already got.

But that takes common sense, self-control, a greater interest in things that don’t cost money (like reading, learning, playing music, enjoying the planet, growing a little food) and a sturdy indifference to what the Joneses are up to next door.
Is that the elusive American Dream I have never quite been able to pin down? Probably not, but it should be.
Speaking of which, how does it come about that only Americans are allowed to dream of a better future?
Do we really believe that the rest of the world lives in sullen despair?

I would say the European Dream is looking much healthier, right now, than ours. The Latin American Dream is looking quite good as well.
Believe it or not, Africans dream too, and even the Chinese Dream might bear looking at.
But you can’t run for office without mentioning the American Dream in every other sentence, along with Plumber Joe.
What suckers we are for words, and how we drag our candidates down into ignorance, forcing them to misuse words and make a travesty of language! Well, I’ve listened to the appalling Palin, who speaks English as a second language, and I heard this last debate, and I just hope to God nothing happens now to stop Obama from winning.
Not that I think he is the answer to all our prayers.

I had a good friend, a well-known historian who was himself a long-standing friend of a President of France, and I asked him what the man was really like.
He looked at me ruefully and said, “Well, you know, they are all monsters.”
And of course I understand that.
It must take a monstrous ego to survive the process, but I think the chances are better with a young man, quite aside from the fact that Obama’s policies have been consistently sane and appealing (as were Hillary’s) as opposed to the policies of McCain.
Regardless of his past heroic episodes, I look at him and shudder. He really is an old monster.
But if Obama does get in, we need to hold his feet to the fire and make sure that he comes through.
Meanwhile, as the worthy senators and congressmen, (and one annoying presidential candidate) were busy figuring out how to spend $700 billion, I was entertaining a bunch of bikers at a place down by the river – the Russian river – called the Rio Nido Roadhouse.
I got an email in July from Josh, who has something to do with this place, and although I knew nothing about the set-up it sounded like a neat place to go in the Fall, especially as it was just down the road, so I said OK.
My intuition was good. It actually is a neck of the woods, redwoods, right on the river not far from Guerneville. That whole area has a really comfortable, old, settled feeling about it.

They have a good patch of grass (no gophers) to camp on, and a stage, and the whole place is run in a very easy, disarming manner.
They do it twice a year – they call it the Redwood Rendezvous – and I recommend it. I have a phone number. 415.794.3093. I wish I had pictures, but the beer was too good and I forgot to take them.

I shouldn’t finish without congratulations to:
Bob Higdon for photographing every courthouse in the United States
Andy Goldfine for his Very Boring Rally celebrating 25 years of Aerostich. A great party. Thank you Andy.
The AMA for it’s super tribute to Triumph at the mid-Ohio race track. Another hugely enjoyable event.

PS: At my lumberyard yesterday I saw some boxes with the born-again fish on them. They contained wallboard jointing compound – what we call “mud”.
Faith-based mud! Well, why not? Good for slinging.