We tend to look at the increase in prices as inflation, but in a situation of fluctuations prices go up and down.

What if prices should be going down 3% but instead we see prices increasing 3%.  We see a price inflation of 3%, but it is really 6%.

How realistic is this?  Recent CPI numbers are down and such CPI adjusted payments as Social Security should be going down, or at least not going up.  But according to out president seniors should still get an increase. He proposed an increase for the misfortune of not having to experience a misfortune.

If you get a zero increase in payment when your cost of living has actually declined then you have in effect gotten an increase. Declining wages which we are esperiencing is very deflationary.

American economists and policy makers live in the fear and the shadow of the Great Depression and its devastating deflation.  European policy makers fear the runaway inflation that destabilized Europe prior to WW II.

With massive debt and government spending that is crowding out private borrowing, many wonder where the inflation is.

Perhaps it is just hidden.

“More than that, no country in the world, not even Germany, would respond “proportionately” if some nonstate militia started rocketing their towns from across some border and killing German citizens.  If a government could not get the state from whose territories the rockets were being fired to take responsibility for ending the threat, then it would have no choice but to silence the threat itself.  Why do German intellectuals, journalists, and politicians expect Israel alone to act differently?  And why do they, of all people, insist that the use of force must always be a last resort in any political confrontation among states, when that kind of thinking is exactly what allowed Hitler to cause the Second World War? Germans frequently talk like Neville Chamberlain at Munich, when they ought to realize that it was Winston Churchill who was right: the readiness to use force in an appropriate and judicious manner is not what causes wars; it is often what prevents them.”

Adam Garfinkle in “Jewcentricity”

I just completed a 600 mile drive from Bloomington, Indiana after visiting with my daughter at IU for her birthday.  Some thoughts on the ride home:

America is obese.  As a rule I pick a restaurant by looking at the patrons and thinking if I want to look like them in ten years.  That would eliminate just about every country breakfast stop including Cracker Barrel and the fast food joints that proliferate on the exits. I miss finding some local decent food. It is all corporate chains. I do tend to favor Waffle House when I am on the road, but I wish they would get some real butter instead of that Country Crock substance, and some real maple syrup even if they charged more for it.

Maybe because the men are too fat to see their own schmucks, they seem unable to hit the urinal. There is a reason we do not put these in our homes.  I can only guess that most of the highway lard asses just spray in the general direction to mark their territories before actually putting any of the urine in the urinal.  I have yet to see a bathroom without a trash receptacle so I do not understand why there is gum and cigarettes buttes in the urinal, except that they must feel entitled once they have marked their general area.

Most of us are sanipeds. That is a word I made up for people who use their feet to lift the toilet seat in a public restroom.  They should make toilet seats with a tab on the side to make it easier to lift the seat with your foot.

Self service gas pumps are a great idea. I am old enough to remember attendants.

Satellite radio is a godsend to road travel.  With satellite radio I actually prefer to drive 9-1/2 hours to Bloomington than to drive to the Atlanta airport, fly to Indianapolis, rent a car and then drive an hour to Bloomington. It maybe takes 2 or 3 hours longer to drive, but I have a comfortable seat and my own space (My wife, Debbie, joined me.) I can also haul stuff much easier and just throw it in my car.   I like to travel but flying is a miserable experience for me.

Channel 105 on Sirius is all Monty Python. A little Bloomberg, a blues station, then Classic Vinyl Rock station, the Eighties, Raw Dog Comedy and then …. whatever.  I even sought out liberal talk radio to get some balance in my life. The one I found was some woman from New York and was laced with profanity. Say what you want about conservative talk radio, it is far more civil.  The lefties seem as critical of the president as the righties do.

To the eighteen wheeler that cut me off and made me slam on my brakes.  Be more careful if you post that 1-800- HOW AM I DRIVING phone number on your truck. We all have cell phones and my wife had one of those portable pocket movie cameras. I called and reported you, reading all the data on the truck to the attendant.  The worst 18 wheelers are the ones on I-75 South from Chattanooga southward.  A fourth of them should be arrested.

The local federation hosted Micah Halpern this evening at the Cox Theatre.  He is an authority on Iran and their nuclear effort.

A few random yet relevant points.

There are 3,000 FBI agents. None of them have passed the test to speak or understand Persian, the language of Iran.  Only a few dozen can speak Arabic. Translation is jobbed off to Israel.  We must job to a third party to translate the language of our biggest security threat.

The Iranians know us far far better than we know them. See above. They are much better at playing the international chess game than we are.

The Iranians have more Phd’s per capita that any country besides the US, Israel and maybe India.  Most are educated in European universities.

Natan Sharansky is a world class champion chess player, and keeps a continuous game with Kasperov.

Unlike Iraq in 1981 with a single nuclear plant above ground, Iran has at least 38 sites and many below ground.

Iran has a space program and has developed rockets to propel satellites into space. This same rocket technology can carry nuclear warheads and their satellites are critical to guide their rockets to assure accuracy. Their space program is not subject to inspection by the nuclear verification agencies.  Other components of their program sucha as triggers are also exempt.

We have no power over Iran. If we are to have any influence it must come though a third party, most likely China, which has a $100 billion dollar oil deal with them. Unfortunately we have been and are bungling our Chinese diplomatic realtionship.  We need a strong relationship with China to have any influence over Iran.

Iran’s diplomatic relationship with Venezuela is based totally on a common hatred of the U.S.

Iran will likely succeed in developing their nuclear weapons.

Read Micah  Halpern at The Micah Report . (now on recommended sites)