Once upon a time, many years ago, I had a Civil Service job and was making the princely sum of about $3,000/month ($150/day). At the time it was one of the highest paid Civil Service positions in the State of California. (For the most part, higher levels were political appointees.) I had a Master’s Degree and had worked for the State for about 10 years.

The stock indexes are still oscillating in large, frequent swings. The chart above shows the absolute value of the close to close standard deviation daily moves based on the implied volatility of the options.The cyan reference line is placed at a 1.5 standard deviation. You can see that such a move appears every few days over the last couple of months, and with increasing frequency. There is understandably much uncertainty in the market.

There are factors building up pressure under the price of other commodities. Demand for food is growing and set to explode. Smart investors will be properly positioned to take advantage when agricultural commodity prices skyrocket.

One of the first things people change as they emerge from poverty is their diet. They move toward more meat and a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. So while we may wonder about how many cars or toasters the brave new world’s top consumers will want, we know for sure they’ll eat more food.

Yesterday, many of the local benefits to flow from the elimination of the public schools were outlined. But eliminating public schooling, an institution not extant at the country’s founding, would have national implications extending well beyond the boundaries of any one state. Chief beneficiaries would be an overall strengthening, and rehabilitation, of the American federal system and an increase in individual liberty.

Some of my readers pointed out, kindly but sternly, that I am living in the past in a way I hadn’t considered.

Muchas gracias, crew, for demonstrating vividly that I can be at least as dense as the next racist, homophobic, intolerant, Neanderthal, semi-literate redneck. (I am always fascinated by how quickly the Uber Left can come up with attacks that all good Statists adopt immediately, baying for what we thought was our 100% American red blood over what we consider traditional values.)

I did not watch the coverage of the protests against Obamacare last weekend, nor the coverage of the actual passing of the health care bill, nor the coverage of President Obama’s signing. I had had enough by the time all this came up. I knew where I stood, nothing that happened in the last 24 hours was going to change my mind, and I definitely had better things to do.

I logged 9,814 air miles. Took four different flights. Spent a total of 54 hours traveling. All to meet with a man they call “Mr. GO Deep…”

“Mr. GO Deep” is the go to guy in offshore oil development. Oil companies pay him HUGE consulting fees in hopes to identify the next deep or ultra deep offshore oil deposits.

Ever since the War Between the States (circa 1860), there hasn’t been a serious (or at least widespread) move for succession from the United States. However, there is a call by some for the State of California to be removed. Have you heard about this?

I’m finding it ever more difficult to describe to people the kind of world that the Mises Institute would like to see, with the type of political order that Mises and the entire classical-liberal tradition believed would be most beneficial for mankind.

It would appear that the more liberty we lose, the less people are able to imagine how liberty might work. It is a fascinating thing to behold.