Visa Account Updater - Part 1
Posted On: Tuesday - June 29th 2021 11:24AM MST
In Topics: Economics Big-Biz Stupidity Scams
Before I get into this, let me state that the Scams topic key is not attached here to indicate that Visa Account Updater itself is a scam. It CAN be, however, helpful for situations in which one IS being scammed, helpful for the scammer, that is. Therefore, this topic key reflects that the post does involve scamming.
We just learned something new about the American financial world a couple of days ago. My wife had ordered some type of vitamin pills, nutrition supplements, or what-have-you on-line. I'm not sure if I've yet got it straight whether she signed up for recurring monthly shipments with their recurring charges on the credit card or whether that was unexpected.
I'll state right now that I avoid signing up for ANYTHING that involves automatic repeating payments. My wife may be seeing the light on this. However, it's not always possible, or at least easy, to avoid them. One instance is the cell phone bill. For a few of the companies we've been through, they will charge you an extra $5, maybe $10 even, if you just want to send checks each month*. There are so many deadbeats out there that, as they always say, "ruin it for the rest of us". It's true in this case. I still resent being considered a likely deadbeat from the get-go or having to pay more for the small risk the Big Biz operation takes. (They can just cut off service easily enough these days, with the flip of a
My wife didn't think these pills were worth anything after a while, so she had written or called that she didn't want any more. This company apparently wasn't having any of that. When she got another batch of these things** in the mail the next month she cut off the credit card***. They kept on coming, well at least one more month, because that's when she realized they were charging the items on the replacement CC with a new number. WTF! She was on the phone with them using the word "scam" a number of times, and I ended up writing a post on facebook (I'm no member, but my wife has some kind of bogus account), going all out and noting that perhaps these people were •Indian credit card hackers. I kind of regret that latter bit, as only then did we get the story straight from the bank that the CC was issued by.
So that's the back story, and here's what most Americans probably don't have any idea about. (We sure didn't.): There's an operation, I believe a part of the Visa company itself, but, I'm not sure on that, called "Visa Account Updater". It is a middle-
The nice bank lady explained the following to me on the phone: In the recent past, a merchant and its, spit, "acquirer" would have received some sort of electronic bad card notice in the past on a cancelled card number. It was too bad for them if the customer already had already gotten the product or made use of their service. That's good, or that's bad, but that's the subject of Part 2. Now what happens is this middle-computer Visa Account Updater outfit has been fed the new CC number of this card holder. After the charge on the first card is denied, the merchant/etc. will make use of the VAU service - there's very likely a charge! - and have the amount charged to the new card. That merchant doesn't receive the new CC info (number, expiration date, and 3-digit code), but it just gets its money from the customer's account.
This is interesting stuff. I do understand the need for it, as it can actually help the many customers who have to change CCs often due to scammers. I also understand that this can cut the leverage out from a customer who is being scammed. As I wrote just above, Part 2 will cover more about this Visa Account Updater.
PS: We wondered a while ago how my friend was able to get the Uber ride working when he knew it had only his old, cancelled CC in the system. We got the ride, the driver was certain he'd get his 75% cut (I tip in cash), and we figured Uber can just suck it if they don't get paid. Now I get completely what happened.
* For that matter, on some of the bills that I can actually count on not being somehow screwed by Big Biz on anytime in the near future, I'll even pay 6 months ahead. They should be spending time down on their knees in their corporate "worship center" just praising God for customers like me... well, until they piss me off.
** I wonder if they've got that old guarantee I used to see on the TV commercials: "If you are not satisfied, we'll send you another one, for FREE!"
*** Which has also been a recurring thing. The charges from scammers have been coming almost fast enough to where I can "burn my (old) credit cards for fuel". (Old, old, Neil Young reference there. Anyone here know which song, besides me?)
**** Sometimes, the first responder is the patient himself, who becomes responsive, gets up and says "fuck this sheeet, homies. I'm gonna get outta here fore the popo finds out how many shots I done took first!"
Comments (15)
Football is Ghey.
Posted On: Monday - June 28th 2021 6:50PM MST
In Topics: Genderbenders Humor Bread and Circuses
We just report. You decide.
Pssst ... guy, spellcheck is your friend. I've always seen it spelled "ghey" when used in this manner.
Hey, Peak Stupidity didn't say it. It's on the internet, from a guy named TMZ*, I swear!
I see from the tweet in question that we are down to last 2 days left of Pride Month. Who knew? We have been remiss here at Peak Stupidity in having not professed our pride for our excellent web site. We are here, we're out of the server closet, we're PROUD, and we're not going to let anyone shame us for what we do here, which is anything and everything ... besides screwing a guy in the ass.
Now as to sportsball itself, the gridiron version, this new statement is hilarious to me for another reason. Used to be, arguably 10 years ago, that any football fan, not to mention a player, would slug you for saying what's in that meme. Now, what could he do about it? I'd have the full woke Establishment behind me ... uh oh... wait ...
PS: I see that Steve Sailer just put up a post on this. I did not get it from there though - been perusing Instapundit more lately.
* I don't know who he is and what that stands for. I'm not interested in finding out either.
Comments (9)
Cancel the riot! It was just a White guy.
Posted On: Monday - June 28th 2021 1:15PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics ctrl-left Anarcho-tyranny
This story out of Portland, Oregon* is a great example for us of the Anarcho-Tyranny that White Americans (especially male) are living under the bad side of. Some of us understand, and some of us are so used to it they may not even realize what it is. A young White man, say under 25 y/o, may not know there can be any other way but to be seen as the worst scum of the nation, based on his
This story is about a police shooting and killing of a White man. The White man is alleged to have come at the cops with a screwdriver, sure enough a weapon, but I read that he was shot while running away though. Is it worse than George Floyd's treatment? I'd say yes, but then as with that highly-policized, but not so highly-actually-reported case, I don't know enough to say.
It's really something to see this Anarcho-tyranny blatantly displayed by the "authorities", the media, and the ctrl-left alike. The tweet above shows that the cops are down with this anarcho-tyranny, or at least simply don't care to make any fuss about it. It is engrained in the Lyin' Press, of course, and the ctrl-left is the source of it. The Commie antifa young assholes in Portland are obviously not that concerned with police killing attempted arrestees. They are only ready to riot when this happens to a Black man, though Oriental and Hispanic will do on a rainy day (most of them there).
The courageous "Paul Kersey" has a very good take on this story in White Lives Don't Matter—To Avert Riot, Portland PD Tells BLM/Antifa Terrorists They Shot A White Man. Often his posts on The Unz Review are repetitive with nothing very much new to say**, but his is one of his good ones - here is the same article, but with comments***, on the unz site.
Stories like this ought to wake a few more people up. The ctrl-left is using black violence and dysfunction to help in their goal of destroying traditional America. They know they won't get any help from their useful thugs, if no poor, poor, pitiful 6 ft 4. black guys have been "abused". They not only won't get help in their destruction, but they call the whole thing off if it is a White guy. These "anti-fascists" are not the Constitutionalists that one may see bravely standing up to police abuse of authority. They want anarchy and destruction. This sounds eerily familiar. Weren't there people like this crawling out of the woodwork about a century ago?
Finally, I'm sure one may hear the argument that "well, this is only payback for what would have happened with the races reversed in the old South." Nah, that is wrong for a number of reasons:
1) In the old South, when blacks killed each other, true, as long as nobody was unluckily hurt in the usually excessive cross-fire, nobody cared. Sure, but that's the same as right now in inner city ghettos all over America. The people involved aren't worth caring about.
2) In the old South, it would have been black people rioting on behalf of black people killed by White police. Here, we have White people rioting ONLY on behalf of black people killed by White police. You need both a dead black person AND a White cop. They are necessary conditions.
3) Do we really want more "pay back" for the alleged sins of the fathers? I thought Affirmative Action was for that. None of this makes for harmonious race relations.
Anyway, Portland antifa, you can go back to the coffee shops, collect your upgraded extended unemployment and take a breather today. There's nothing to see here - it was just a White guy.
* It's not the first one either of this very same thing happening, but I hadn't read enough on that other story to make a post.
** I don't blame him for this though. What he is trying to do is to drill in that this black violence and inability to assimilate to White norms is a regular thing. People get hurt every day, lives have been upended, and more generally, we can't live like we'd like to.
*** I have not had good luck with his moderation policy as of late, so I'll not comment there anytime soon. None of it was off-the-wall or too out of bounds - I think the guy just doesn't feel he wants certain specific comments that he's not interested in on there. That's just too "whimmy" for me.
Comments (2)
Gerry Rafferty - Island
Posted On: Saturday - June 26th 2021 5:55PM MST
In Topics: Music
From the OTHER Gerry (who spells it with a "G" instead of a "J"), we have another favorite of mine.
Gerry Rafferty's 1978 album City to City made it to the #1 spot on the US Billboard rock/pop chart. Peak Stupidity has featured one or two of the songs from this 10-track masterpiece before. There were 3 singles released from the album, Baker Street (of course!), Right Down the Line, and Home and Dry.
If any one album ever deserved to be #1 on the charts (and sell 5 1/2 million copies), City to City has got to be it. It's one thing to have an album with no bad songs on it. This one doesn't just have all good songs - it has all GREAT songs. IMO, City to City is the best pop album of all time, and Gerry Rafferty had the best voice of any pop male vocalist EVER! ("IMO" means In My Opinion, keep in mind.)
Gerry's smooth voice is really featured in Island, track 9. Additionally, Raphael Ravenscroft, who played the most recognizable saxophone solo in all, or at least, pop music, on Baker Street also played on this one. I like Gary Taylor's bass guitar on it too.
Have a happy Sunday, Peakers! As always we thank you for reading.
Comments (17)
We need to talk about Kevin - book v movie
Posted On: Friday - June 25th 2021 8:47PM MST
In Topics: Movies Books
This is not a movie review. After all, Peak Stupidity already reviewed the Lionel Shriver novel We need to talk about Kevin. I had to get that movie after reading this riveting novel.
Of course, this movie could not be just like the book. The book consisted of letters from the narrator/Mom to her ex-husband. In making a couple of hours length movie, you've got to leave out a lot of happenings from the book. There are lots of events from the book that could have made the story in the movie more clear.
Since I read the book first, I already knew the story, to it's hard for me to tell whether the movie really tells the story well. I think so.
Even in regular movie reviews, Peak Stupidity doesn't go for all that criticism or praise of the lighting, the effects, the casting, etc. I'm no movie buff in that sense. If it's good, it's good, if not, it's not, no matter what prima donna stars and starlets are in it. However, the producers of We need to talk about Kevin really made a good pick with the lady who plays the Mom. She is just what I would have expected from my visualizations while reading! I wouldn't say the same about the Dad, but maybe the "excitable boy" too.
It worked out pretty well for me to read the novel first, then watch the movie. Just for entertainment's sake, I recommend either one.
Comments (2)
Zhou Bai Dien explains his solution for increased black murdering
Posted On: Friday - June 25th 2021 3:13PM MST
In Topics: Race/Genetics Zhou Bai Dien Guns
Blogger Steve Sailer has done a great job in informing me, and I'm sure plenty of others, of this significant escalation in black violence since the "Summer of George" with numbers and graphs. (Nice Seinfeld reference too by Mr. Sailer.) One could legitimately argue over whether the change for the worse occurred due to the LOCKDOWNs and free money given out or the lack of policing per the specific wishes of the black community and as self-imposed by cops that are tired of appearing in viral videos or a combination of all that.
Here's what one can't argue with, if one seeks more news than just the narrative of the Lyin' Press, or simply keeps one's eyes open: Besides a few high-profile ones featured by the Lyin' Press, these shootings are perpetrated by black men. There is an increase in that type of shooting, with the rounds hitting people all over the party or block, and an occasional hit on the target. These are usually just targets of impulsive black rage, a guy who stared at another guy too hard, or maybe a screwed-up fried chicken order, I dunno.
One could come up with the usual solutions* under the assumption that American society has just not done enough to lift these black people out of their sorry state, as it's all cultural and poor nurturing, right? That's not whom we are and we could do better. Alternatively, one could face reality finally tell the truth, that these people are genetically low IQ and genetically prone to violence. The author Charles Murray just wrote a book explaining that, in fact (with not very good of a solution either, as some readers of the book have noted - briefly discussed in this post of ours.)
The normal M.O. here in America is for everyone to go along with the first idea. Of course, the Blue-squad wants to spend more money on the solutions, while the Red-squad wants to spend less money than the Blue-squad. Nobody is up for truth-telling and solutions based on said truth. Wouldn't be prudent, as the man said.
For this post, I'm going by what Steve Sailer excerpted here with a hell of a good one paragraph dismissal of said stupidity. Yeah, I get news from blogs often, at least ones I trust. However, the much larger transcript of what I couldn't stomach listening to, along with something similar from a few months back, is something I'd like to fisk separately. It's evil stuff out of these people, which I'll get to next time, but I have a different point today.
It's getting harder and harder for the ctrl-left, including Biden and his handlers, to stick with the narrative. I would say that from 1968, the year of the start of serious gun control**, till the early 1990s, there were intelligent people, not principled Americans, but intelligent do-gooders who honestly wanted to regulate/tax/ban various gun for safety reasons. I will give the NRA and millions of American voters and activists credit for not only thwarting the ban of all guns by this point, but also learning and teaching others the error in the logic of those do-gooders. The great increase and improvement of concealed carry laws (see our review here) is one thing. There have been many others. Things really turned around by the mid 1990s.
More importantly, the general public has long ago learned that the story about gun control being for "our safety" is bullshit. That narrative has been given up by the Red-squad politicians and many Blue-squad ones, who want to be elected. The Lyin' Press has been still on it, by showing story after story of
It's becoming more and more obvious to the "deplorable" patriotic Americans that the ctrl-left's push for gun control is completely about Totalitarianism now. They DO NOT WANT US TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT BACK when they come down on us with the full load of it. They were supposed to have taken care of this long ago, per the (I dunno) Frankfurt School's lesson plan.
So, here's the President and Commander-by-Cheat, Joe Biden explaining:
Background checks for purchasing a firearm are important; a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — no one needs to have a weapon that can fire over 30, 40, 50, even up to 100 rounds unless you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests or something.See, now, if he didn't screw up his line here, someone really screwed up with this. We're talking rifles here. We all know that this escalation in violent crime is not about Connor dissing Tyler about all the dandelions in his yard during a barbecue in the burbs and Tyler coming out with his 30.06 shooting up the gated community They'd have been better off keeping with the "illegal" handguns narrative.
Then, this deer donning kevlar remark really has me miffed. He could have brought up .50 caliber rounds and lied about lower calibers. "You just need your shotgun." What does the kevlar vest have to do with a larger number of rounds? Without a good shot, this deer would not stay put for even 1 more shot, or is the point that a hunter would knock the vest-wearing deer down with the first shot and run over to kill him with all the capacity of his 50-round mag after that? Biden screwed up and brought up the wrong tripe here. Leave out the kevlar vest, and it least makes sense.
Regarding his remark about F-15s not allowed to be in the hands of any of us peons or a militia. I could go on about Amendment II and that the F-15 is an interceptor, rather than a ground attack aircraft. I'll leave this one to Mr. Anon. From his comment on that iSteve thread here:
The answer is probably "yes". Thank you, Mr. Anon.In other comments Biden said we’d need F-15s and nukes to defend ourselves against the U.S. Federal GovCo.Yeah, right, small arms are no good for fighting the U.S. Government you peons – we have F-15s and W-88 nuclear warheads – but on January 6th, a bunch of unarmed flyover-country HVAC technicians, insurance salesmen, and grandmas, led by an internet shaman in a buffalo headress, constituted an “insurrection” that was a threat to the Republic!
Suffering from a little narrative-confusion there, senile old Joe?
PS: Site note: I finally added the Guns topic key back this February. I hesitate so long on these because I know I'll have to go back through 1960 posts and add these new ones. I will do that in a week of couple of hours a day, with a list of the newer ones in mind.
As the reader may well know, Peak Stupidity has had plenty of posts on guns. Except for 3 with the "Guns" key, they presently have the Liberty/Libertarianism, US Feral Government, or US Police State topic keys, at least.
* Fred Reed has written a couple of very decent columns recently. This last, Blackness Fatigue: Enough Is Too Much explains the current American racial nightmare pretty well, with, well, absolutely no solutions prescribed, which is his thing.
** Arguably, one could bring up the law in 1934, passed 87 years ago tomorrow.
Comments (6)
Chinese Immigration NON-Stupidity
Posted On: Thursday - June 24th 2021 8:03PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity China
This one is a cut-and-paste job. It's not even a normal cut-and-paste job, as I'm getting this one from Peak Stupidity itself. In this post about that Josh Rogin China/Trump book, I'd mentioned an anecdote coming in a footnote. What the footnote was about was this: "As evil as the governments of the Middle Kingdom have been to their countrymen, they still want to keep the same countrymen at least, and they make a big effort to control who lives there."
I found out that I'd related this story on Peak Stupidity already. It was in our post Banned in Beijing ..., but not at all related to that post itself. That post is from over 4 years ago, so likely all readers here have not read this one. Here:
******************
This is hardly related at all, except my friend's date in the south of China was named Shuping (that's the family name - first name was "Sweetie" or something). Anyway, I was in a hurry to meet them both before 2:30P on the "mainland" side of the border with Macao a few years back, as I would not know where to meet up with the bus to Canton, were I to be late. I just missed getting in front of the immigration man, when a Moslem guy (with crescent moon on his green passport) got back in front of me to finish. Let me tell you, this immigration guy was absolutely not screwing around or being PC by treating everyone the same. He went through every page on this guy's passport with a magnifying glass, back and forth at least twice. 10-15 minutes went by. Well, I got my turn finally, and it took about 30 seconds. Though worried even more about making it in time into the country, I pointed at the guy, said "Moslem?" and gave that immigration guy a big thumbs up. He smiled back.
Luckily my friend meant AFTER 2:30P, not BEFORE, as I looked frantically for gui lao (foreigners, literally "white ghosts") all around the sea of Chinapeople on the other side. Good times, good times, ... and we should import immigration zealots like that Chinese gentleman at the Zhuhai/Macau border, rather than vapid psychology students.
******************
Now, that's a real country, taking seriously who comes in, who comes out, and WHEN they do. They have what's called "exit control", marking people as leaving. This allows them to be sure when people overstay their time limit in China. I know we didn't have a good system like China's on exit control, and I don't even know if we do now. See, that, a decent southern border barrier, and a moratorium on legal immigration are what I'd called a very good start on "Comprehensive Immigration Control". For the traitors like Texas Senator John Cornyn, that term means Amnesty. "Mister we could use a man like Xi Jinping
PS: Interestingly enough, that 4 y/o post had discussion of face masks in it. This was not about diseases though, but just the smog in the big Chinese cities. I've seen this myself, but it was a while back. According to a commenter on The Unz Review the girls are still holding umbrellas walking around in the sunshine. That was always pretty charming.
Comments (5)
One of Steve Sailer's best
Posted On: Wednesday - June 23rd 2021 7:34AM MST
In Topics: US Police State Pundits Media Stupidity
We on here, I and the regular commenters anyway, have had our BIG differences fairly recently with blogger-pundit Steve Sailer on Kung Fu PanicFest. I've written him some things that likely pissed him off a good bit, and some have bailed out on that blog (Mr. Hail, for example). Well, I don't insult people just for the hell of it, but that year-ago fixation and semi-hysteria on Mr. Sailer's blog was too much. I have a problem with "crises" being used as excuses for more implementation of the US Feral Gov't's Police State, and, IMO, Mr. Sailer fell right for that shit. Being the media-savvy and media-cynical guy he is, I'd have thought he could see through all that.
That's about over though, not for the country, Police State-wise, but at least for that blog. I have been reading regularly and commenting. When Steve Sailer gets fixated on a subject, he goes all out. Lately one of these fixations are on the black crime numbers (in addition to, more recently, the black traffic fatality numbers), their having increased significantly since the BLM insurrections. (Can I call them that?) The numbers are being noticed by the Lyin' Press. However, the obvious cause, the BLM stuff, defunding of police departments, and the increase in police donut-shop time (I can't blame them) due to fear of going viral is never mentioned or lied about.
The press is putting the increase in violence on the pandemic. I see possible cause and effect here, as black guys are much more affected by the Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop thing. Then there was the huge extra amount of unemployment money given out. (See, they don't steal a loaf of bread because they are out of money - they steal a smartphone when they've been given money and have idle time.) OK, fine, but a) the Lyin' Press won't explain it like this and b) as Mr. Sailer has shown, the violence increase doesn't fit that timeline, and c) his explanation explains this violent crime surge better and it would add to the pandemic explanation. The Lyin' Press will always put the blame on White people. In the case pointed to below, it's that the White people haven't doled them enough State and Federal funds and "it's the guns!"
Wheww, I was really just writing this to to praise Steve Sailer for his recent post Mayors Respond to the Murder Surge: We've Tried Nothing and We're All Out of Ideas!. Not only did Mr. Sailer show us the crime wave and timeline in graphs and explain things very well in numerous posts, but, in this one, he calls out with appropriate snark the stupidity of Washington Post writers Griff Witte and Mark Berman on their long-winded bullshit explanation. As a bonus, Steve Sailer has a great title and a Simpsons clip to go along with it.
I'll still be reading the iSteve blog, with the excellent posts like that one.
PS: Ah rats, after all that, I just noticed the very last line (above the video clip):
Sorry, but the alternative to the state having a monopoly on violence is not after-school activities for youngsters, but nobody having a monopoly on violence and thus lots more violence.I can't be sure if that's snark or not, but if you look just above it, you'd think it's not. However, then it doesn't make so much sense. Does he want the police to have a monopoly on violence? How far does that go? It's almost if, with the anarcho-tyranny in place and lack of an enforced Constitution, a White Man can't legally defend his family or have freedom of association, so, I guess, yeah, we're gonna need a police monopoly.
Well, this guy has never been a principled Constitutionalist, so you've got to get through remarks like that.
Comments (11)
Nothing but disgust
Posted On: Monday - June 21st 2021 7:40PM MST
In Topics: US Feral Government Race/Genetics
(Image off of VDare)
That's Peak Stupidity's feeling after not just hearing about this Juneteenth holiday bill being passed, but additionally by how many votes. I could go on about the cowardice of many of the American people, tempered with the thought that, yes, you often put your status in the neighborhood and even career on the line. However, the disgust in this post if for our supposed representatives and the elite Senators in the Feral Government.
VDare's always on-the-money Washington Watcher II gave us the sad disgusting story of the votes of these cucks in his pre-Juneteenth article GOP (With Brave Exceptions Like Rep. Matt Rosendale) Rolls Over For Anti-White Juneteenth Scam. The voting was sickening: Unanimous yea's, or at least no nays in the Senate and 14 nays in the House.* Though he helped encourage this whole piece of bullshit, Zhou Bai Dien himself didn't have to be a factor. Even the severely math challenged can see that this one would override a veto.
A commenter on the Unz Review argued to me that this was not cowardice but just the normal purposeful destruction of America by these guys. I don't buy it for most of the R's, at least those in the House. They will vote for the destructive wars, the immigration invasion, and the corporate welfare ("invade the world, invite the world, in hoc to the world", in Steve Sailer parlance). They have donors to please, of course. The voters come 2nd or lower. In my mind though, many of these guys are not out for the purposeful cultural destruction that the ctrl-left, of which the D squad is almost completely comprised, is.
These Senators and Reps must know that they have so many constituents seething with hatred for their cowardice, but then, that's not as bad as being called names. No, of course not!
The whole thing disgusted me so much, I didn't feel like even writing about it before. Here are the 14 Congressmen who voted nay:
Matt Rosendale(MT)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Mo Brooks (AL)
Andrew Clyde (GA)
Scott DesJarlais (TN)
Paul Gosar (AZ)
Ronny Jackson (TX)
Doug LaMalfa (CA)
Thomas Massie (KY)
Tom McClintock (CA)
Ralph Norman (SC)
Mike Rogers (AL)
Chip Roy (TX)
Tom Tiffany (WI)
All Red squad - should we congratulate them? What's the point?
* I am not sure how many abstentions there were in each body. That's a cop-out anyway. "Yeah, my alternator broke, and I missed my flight. I missed the vote by THIS MUCH. Yeah, CPAC audience, I had my nay vote in my hand even, yeah, that's the ticket."
Comments (13)
Who, what, when, WHERE, why, how
Posted On: Monday - June 21st 2021 3:22PM MST
In Topics: University Political Correctness Curmudgeonry Media Stupidity
This post turned from a straightforward "look at this shit!" post about more wokeness at a university (well, what else would you expect) into a curmudeonry post. That's a genre, if you will, that Peak Stupidity has laid off of to some degree. (It was one of the most active Topic Keys at the start this blog.)
The blog Campus Reform, linked-to a lot by Glenn Reynolds and the Instapundit gang, does a decent job of documenting stupidity on campus. VDare's James Fulford posted Chapman University Holds Multicultural Segregated Graduations, Including "APIDA"—But None For Whites, Of Course with reference to the C.R. original.
I start reading some news, and I want to know WHERE it happened or is happening. It's one of the 5 "W"s of Journalism* for cryin' out loud! It may just be me, but I can't listen to any story told verbally to me without early on knowing where it happened. I have to interrupt people, even if only for 3 seconds, to find that out. It's a male thing likely, as we need those visuals in our head to think.
Neither the Campus Reform article nor James Fulford's post mentions where this Chapman University is located. It's not as if this place is widely known. Maybe Campus Reform expected readers to know, but I doubt that, and VDare is not all about universities. Each one could have spent 10 seconds lookng this up if they didn't know. I would give them a break on Harvard, or better yet, the University of California - San Diego. (Is that where Grant's tomb is? I still want to find out who's buried there - people keep asking me...)
OK, well, this is not just about these 2 articles, or this would be pretty nit-picky of Peak Stupidity. I see it a lot on-line, The worst perpetrators of this media stupidity are the TV news sites. I try to avoid them simply because most of them have pop-up, flashing crap up the ying-yang, making me wait a couple of minutes before it all settles the hell down. Sometimes, they've got some stories I want to read, mostly local to the station/website, with more and more current details than the big outfits.
I look at the station call sign at the top. Sure a call sign starting with "K" means west of the Mississippi River (I think?), and "W" is for east of it. Well, that doesn't narrow it down much. They show the weather usually, so I can tell that it's not Minot or not Sarasota. That just doesn't cut it. I need to imagine the place before I can understand. I'll look all around the front page, once it settles the hell down, and mostly find nothing. They've got to know there is google/bing/duckduckgo/etc. out there for which people from out of town can find their stories. I end up looking up the station location by call sign!
What's the problem with people? Are there really people who don't care where it happened? "Something happened. Here's who, errr, if he's not black.. Here's what. Here's when. Here why, at least as it fits our narrative. Here's how. Where? You don't need to know that.". I just can't think without a location. Perhaps this is another young-people thing. "What do you mean, where? It happened on the internet, that's where. Duh?!"
PS: Oh, what ABOUT the graduation ceremonies at Chapman College in Orange, California? I may write another post on that.
* What they do now is concentrate way too much on the "why". Every story has an opinion in it. "Man shot by teen in robbery gone wrong: White people must be responsible." Then, the "who" must be hidden much of the time.
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Introducing Black Greta
Posted On: Friday - June 18th 2021 7:36PM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Climate Stupidity
Thanks go to Adam Smith for either creating this image or finding it for us. I took some liberty and added a name and caption. Of course, black Greta's Mom was a little more creative in the delivery room. She also doesn't annunciate her, errrr, English(?) quite as well as Swedish Greta, especially the Death Metal version.
Just as some background, as usual, the woke SJW, Commie, whatever-you-want-to-call-them crowd is continually calling for more "People of Color"*to be a bigger part in this, that, and the other thing. As is often the case, I read some of this tripe courtesy of observations by Steve Sailer. This one was humorous enough for Mr. Sailer to prompt him to title it That Surprise Merger of the Washington Post and Babylon Bee Is Starting to Show Synergy.
Goodbye Greta, we hardly knew yöu. Hello Greteisha!
* There are other letters in addition to P.O.C. now, but I'm not in the mood to look up what they stand for. Hell, maybe there's W.G. for White Guy in there ... nah, somehow I doubt it.
Comments (8)
Orwellian Stupidity out of the man himself
Posted On: Friday - June 18th 2021 7:00AM MST
In Topics: Orwellian Stupidity Books
Peak Stupidity uses our topic key Orwellian Stupidity in jest this time. This post is about stupidity of the author George Orwell himself, or really just lack of wisdom (gotta keep with the theme of the blog though, you know...). Normally, the term "Orwellian" is, of course, used to describe practices of Totalitarian governments that were frighteningly described in their final endgame in Orwell's most famous novel, the dystopian Sci-Fi story 1984.
I'm only writing this due to my having read 2 more of the famous author's books, Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm, lately. The point here is not at all to denigrate George Orwell, as I wouldn't know how to start writing in the manner of a classic author like this.
That's just it, though. George Orwell* is a classic author. From the time I was forced to read many of these guys' (and a few gals') works in high school**, then later on a few of them of my own volition, I was instilled a respect for writers of published books that was perhaps undeserved. Don't get me wrong - I have plenty of respect for the writing abilities of the classic authors. I realize the value of the classic American and English literature as sometimes force-fed to me for my own good.
However, that was not the age of the internet, in which one can self-publish and promote his works on a youtube channel. If there is a published book out by some dude, well, I figured he is a Writer™, PERIOD, and is somebody who knows WTH he is doing. It's taken me a long time to shake that respect and realize that most of these writers are humans with foibles and can be lacking in wisdom like the rest of us.
Exhibit A here is one George Orwell. 1984 is indeed an important work, meant to be a warning about Totalitarianism, but often taken lately as an instruction manual! That was his last book however, written in 1949 when he was 46 years old***. At the time of his writing of Homage to Catalonia, he was only 35 years old. Face it, he was just young and dumb like most of us were, to some degree. In Orwell's case, it wasn't to impress the chicks that he went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War (written about in that book), as he was already married. However, you've got the usual impulsive behavior of a fairly young, and in this case very idealistic, man. "Let's go fight those nasty Fascists! Our side is full of good people, who want to set things right. Never mind the support from the USSR, we're doing the right thing."
Homage to Catalonia was a diary of Mr. Orwell's time on one of the fronts in the war, and then of the turmoil that happened in Barcelona as he and his wife stayed there some months. This turmoil, including plenty of street fighting, arrests, and executions (including of some of Orwell's compatriots on the "Republican" side) was among the different factions that were all supposed to be fighting the fascists. I didn't get the big picture of what this was all about - spillover from the friction/purges/etc. back in the USSR, the big supporter of Orwell's side - until after I wrote my review, and that's because neither did Mr. Orwell himself. He couldn't write about that part, as he didn't know any better, being in the midst of this turmoil and confusion in Barcelona. He could only have seen the big picture after he was back safely in France, then England, and maybe only after some time had gone by.
I'd read multiple times in the past that George Orwell, even though he wrote 1984 had remained a Socialist in ideology. It was hard for me to believe that a guy who saw the evils of Totalitarianism, as described in his last book, couldn't see that Socialism usually leads in that direction. However, I see that by the time of his writing of Animal Farm, at 42 years old, indeed this author had no problem with Socialism itself, only a problem with a bad implementation of Socialism by
What's the whole point here? The point is that, just based on one classic book alone, one shouldn't get the impression that the author is/was some big fountain of wisdom. George Orwell really didn't get it, from what I've read (only the 3 books), until his last work, published the year before his death at 46 y/o. These classic authors are well known for possibly some high-brow entertainment or from their making of profound statements about society and ideology. Much of their lives, though, until they gather some wisdom, they may be as full of shit as the next guy. I got the wrong impression from my English teachers.
* That was the pen name of Englishman Eric Arthur Blair. Wikipedia has a good biography page here.
** I never did tackle that Moby Dick, though it was indeed assigned. Even the Cliff Notes were too long for this guy!
*** George Orwell died young, still 46 years old in January of 1950.
**** He'd finally gotten a clue about what that whole Barcelona mess he'd gotten caught up in was all about.
Comments (17)
You will own nothing, and you will be happy
Posted On: Wednesday - June 16th 2021 8:58PM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity Globalists Economics The Future Big-Biz Stupidity
As The Alarmist, one of our frequent Peak Stupidity commenters has explained here, that seems to be the future that the Globalists have planned for us... not them, but just us. Alarmist says, "In 2030, you will own nothing, you will rent what you need, and you will be happy."
Along these lines, comes the deal with the Big Biz financial company BlackRock buying up large numbers of houses in this country. Are they the reason prices are going up rather than just increasing inflation and people's search for assets that won't be destroyed by the FED, as we speculated* in our recent post The current real estate boom as prepping for inflation?
Via an unz.com commenter, I came across the great video below, from an outfit called "Trader University". I have no idea if that organization is just a scam, but this Matthew Kratter sure seems to have his head screwed on straight with his explanation of what BlackRock is up to. The big point DOES have to do with the FED, in fact, as BlackRock has access to the cheap money, while the rest of us only have access to the fairly cheap money. They can come out ahead over the small-time, hard working landlords.
Besides this unfair finance shenanigans, a big problem with Big-Biz being Big Landlord is the dealing with and uncaring bureaucracy by renters. Oh, and BlackRock doesn't have to live anywhere near these neighborhoods, so Section 8 folks, you are very welcome! That's some bad news for anyone in one of these neighborhoods. The Globalists could give a rat's ass about that. Section 8 is just another Feral Government program that Big Biz such as BlackRock can work in harmony with.
I thought it was worth my time to go through the 10 minutes here. One last thing, and it's the last part of the video: This Mr. Kratter touts Bitcoin at the end to offer a solution out of this Global Financial Stupidity. However, he had nary a word to say about gold and silver. I understand the, well, I don't want to write "value" of bitcoin, but it's usefulness. I just don't see it as a store of value as gold and silver are. Perhaps that's just the new generation gap for ya'.
For one of these young people, I didn't find his voice too soi-boy-like to listen to either.
* Get it, "speculated" as in Real Estate?
Comments (9)
National Healthcare: Socialism at its finest - Part 4
Posted On: Tuesday - June 15th 2021 7:57PM MST
In Topics: Liberty/Libertarianism Healthcare Stupidity Socialism/Communism
(Continued from Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)
Peak Stupidity noted the point of this series in the 1st post, that the changes for the worse in American healthcare have been on the business/economic side, not the scientific/technical side, and these two issues should be kept separate in a discussion of what's wrong. In the 2nd part and the 3rd part, we discussed what Nationalized or Government-run ("single-payer" for the obscuration-euphemism inclined) and the beauty of the old American nearly free-market system, respectively.
This post will be about what to do to change direction from the Socialist road we have gone far down back to something resembling real markets. The quick answer is "nothing". We can't do a u-turn now. I will expound on that just a little.
Socialism is made to be an irreversible process. (The 3rd law of Thermodeolgy?) I don't say that's intentional by all parties. Your Bernies and such perhaps are just so hooked on this ideology that can produce a Utopia (A Utopia, I tells ya!) that it's not necessarily their intention to lock people in. "Look at Sweden. They were a unified society with high altruistic tendencies... etc... " "You'll like our Socialist programs so much, you'll get tired of #LIKING them!" I still say that forcing the responsible to take care of the irresponsible is not the way to go.
Within the government agencies developed to run Socialism, and especially within the higher ups, of course there is an intention to sign up more taxpayer dependents and keep the existing ones. It's job security for those bureaucrats, and it's a way to expand one's fiefdom for the higher officials. Politicians such as the scumbag Lyndon Johnson have admitted that the idea is to create dependencies that will have these "niggers voting Democrat for the next 50 years." It's been 56 and counting, so, you gotta admit, the man was right about that part, his ruination of the nation notwithstanding.
If you get enough Americans dependent on any Socialist program, you've now got that many additional votes for the program than you had when it was voted in (well, by somebody) to begin with. Take Social Security, please. Yeah, that's an old joke, but I'm not counting on seeing any REAL money out of that deal, so if they did take it, it's not gonna surprise me or bankrupt me. Yet, I have friends who are just plain counting on the Social Security Scam, ... errr, Scheme(?)*, when they should have known better and could have saved better. They will not support trashing the whole system.
Well, back to the topic, the Socialist Government Healthcare plans will be the same. The Big-Gov/Big-Biz partnership in control of this huge industry** have created dependencies that make it difficult to back out of these programs, whether intentionally or not. The irreversibility is inherent.
Why even bother to write about "the way it was" and the bureaucracy of Exhibit A, the British NHS then? For one thing, at this point, there is still room outside the system to pay cash for services. One can still be on the hook via his taxes to support the stupidity, yet, work outside the system for better care. One can do that in Britain too, and people do, as we've noted. However, the more government control that is put on the medical field, the more those outside that system may be squashed. It'd be best to still try to stave off more of it.
Secondly, people, especially the young who don't have the imagination or knowledge to understand there's a better way out in the world, ought to be taught otherwise. As with the writing of Ron Paul columns, we need to get to the root of our problems, even if we can't just flip a switch to go back in this society, just for the record. The only way we'll ever see anything like the 1960s American healthcare world again is after a separation or reset.
* See also Part 2.
** The "Statista" site says it is 18% of the GDP, but then GDP is a squirrelly number. It includes those very 11 people out of 50 at that friend's medical practice that do nothing but bill collection. Is that really a product or a service?
Comments (20)
Site note and excellent VDare article
Posted On: Monday - June 14th 2021 7:50PM MST
In Topics: Websites Pundits Race/Genetics alt-right/MAGA Books
Site note first:
As you may have noticed over the last month or so, Peak Stupidity has slowed down a bit. We have gone from a feverish 10-12 posts weekly to more like 7 to 10. There are also weekdays in which we have not posted a thing. I apologize to the readers who look forward to a post each evening, (if any ... posts ... or readers that like us so much).
I don't think the'll be any running out of material. Sometimes I've got 5 ideas from suggestions in previous posts backed up and at least as many new ones. It's the summer, and family obligations will be higher. Hopefully, there'll be 5 to 7 posts or so weekly for the next 2 months. There may be more of the shorter ones and more "hey, read this!" types. We're not going dark slowly, though, or anything like that.
Speaking of anything like that, it may be time this summer to do the revamping of the software. That's more of a warning than a promise, just as the changes may be more bugs than features. ;-} That'll take a week or two, if I get started on it.
Great VDare commentary on the new Charles Murray book:
This is Steve Sailer material, all the material in the Charles Murray book Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America. However, F. Roger Devlin's* commentary today in VDare is not about Charles Murray's data analysis on black/hispanic/white/"asian" crime rates and intelligence in this new book. He has no problem with that, but he does with Mr. Murray's worry about White people getting tribal.
You'll likely appreciate Charles Murray's FACING REALITY: Ruling Class Must Accept Race Differences—Or Provoke The "Disaster" Of White Identity Politics. Note that Mr. Devlin put "disaster" in quotes, as he thinks it is, or would be, no kind of disaster at all. I agree with Mr. Devlin vs. Mr. Murray.
One powerful reason to suspect our individualism and tendency to de-emphasize race and kinship has deeper roots is the slowness of American whites to adopt racial identity politics for themselves. Murray approves of such reluctance. He may not like minority racial politics, yet his principal fear appears to be that Whites may begin to develop something similar.It gets better from there. I don't use the word often, but I'd say this Mr. Devlin is based.
In other words, he believes the current double standard forbidding Whites (and only Whites) from pursuing their group interests—while permitting or encouraging such behavior in other groups—is a lesser evil than Whites starting to behave like everybody else and fight fire with fire. In his own words: “If Whites adopt identity politics, disaster follows.”
* I didn't recognize this writer's name, and I see this is his first article on VDare this year. He writes infrequently, or is published on VDare infrequently, as I see just 3 or 4 per year.
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It's Just a Thought - CCR
Posted On: Saturday - June 12th 2021 9:04PM MST
In Topics: Music
I woke up the other day with a song playing in my head that had the hypnotic keyboards, as with The Doors' Ray Manzarek's stuff, but it was Creedence, with a lead guitar playing. I can't figure out for sure what that was. CCR didn't use keyboards much until their 6th album, Pendulum, from late 1970. I bought his album, much later of course, expecting the usual CCR guitar dominated sound, but this was different, requiring some time to get used to.
It's Just a Thought may or may not be the song I'd had in my head, but either way, this is a nice one. It's not nearly long enough, as you want in those hypnotic keyboard parts, such as the long fade ending in Supertramp's Child of Vision or The Doors' Riders on the Storm, at only 3 1/2 minutes (maybe long for a CCR song).
I don't know if the lyrics are profound or not, but they sure sound like they are.
Creedence Clearwater Revival was:
John Fogerty – lead vocals, lead guitar, keyboards, harmonica, saxophone
Tom Fogerty – rhythm guitar, backing and lead vocals
Doug Clifford – drums, percussion, backing and occasional lead vocals
Stu Cook – bass guitar, backing and occasional lead vocals, keyboards
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Gain a function, lose a function
Posted On: Saturday - June 12th 2021 8:45PM MST
In Topics: Science Healthcare Stupidity Kung Flu Stupidity
OK, that's gain of function. This term sounds like it was made to not mean very much. I am not in the science of virology, so maybe it has more connotations for a virologist, but how about something like "Deadliness upgrade" instead? That's what it is, changing viruses that originally only harm animals into ones that can harm and kill humans. Is "gain of function" purposefully obscure so that the public will not wonder "just why the hell are people doing this?"
Peak Stupidity wondered* back in our post Nicholas Wade on that Wuhan lab and origins of the Kung Flu why this gain-of-function research is being done at all. The author, science writer Nick Wade asked the question too.
The stated purpose, per that article, is to mutate or recombine the virus for reasons of being able to develop a vaccine that could fight such a virus. It's not just that Wuhan lab that does this work, and it's not just on these specific SARS viruses. There are labs that do the same for flu strains. I just don't get it. Why take the risk of handling the newly developed strains that are harmful to humans, just for the chance that they will develop naturally and people will need a vaccine? If it takes lots of work in the lab to make this mutation happen, what's the chances that it will develop naturally and require a vaccine? I don't know - I'll ask a virologist next time I meet one.
It seems the risk of gain-of-function projects outweighs the benefits. Then, when I read about Dr. Anthony Fauci and his putting money into the Wuhan lab for this research in cooperation with the Chinese, I wonder more about some truly evil intent, right under our noses, in plain sight. We do tend to give away technology to the Chinese left and right, but with all the animosity between the countries, would American researchers give away bio-weapons technology? That's what this is. There's no difference between gain-of-function research and bioweapons research other than the names of the labs. If the American and Chinese "authorities" are cooperating on this, who is their common enemy?
Why do you go about taking chances that may result in a real life version of Contagion?
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Good stuff from two of our favorites
Posted On: Friday - June 11th 2021 9:55PM MST
In Topics: Pundits Global Financial Stupidity Economics US Feral Government Zhou Bai Dien
Peak Stupidity is done writing about books for a little while, and they'll be only one more post on the Nationalized Healthcare topic. Tonight, we'd like to point out two very good posts by two good pundits.
From our favorite literary pundit, as seen on VDare, and I'm sure a thousand other places, there was this post yesterday: "Voting Rights": It’s "Racist" Not To Let Democrats Cheat.
I haven't been keeping up with too much of the Bai Dien administration's and Congress' moves, because I'm not sure I can do a damn thing about them but keep on prepping. Miss Coulter discusses, in her own special style, 3 new bills being introduced to impose on how the States are letting people vote and register to vote. I won't go into the details, as Miss Coulter does a good job. Let's just notice here that this usurpation of States' control of voters and voting is just a continuation of what 4 separate Constitutional Amendments started - they would be Amendment XV, Amendment XIX*, Amendment XXIV and Amendment XXVI. The deal now is that you don't need to pass and have ratified a whole Amendment to the Constitution to usurp power. That's too hard. It's the current era, you know.
Will States EVER fight back against the taking of whatever powers they have left? Probably not until the Feral Gov't is broke, as right now, due to the flow of the money, when the Feds say jump, State officials say "how high, Sir?!" (See # 1 on the list of evils of the income tax in the "Part 3" post on Amendment XIX linked-to below.)
Speaking of the Feral Government being broke, I refer the reader to a short post (his usually are) from blogger Audacious Epigone.
Here's the link to: It's Not Transitory, It's the New Normal, with the "transitory" referring the current higher inflation rate.
Mr. Epigone usually writes posts to discuss data from the General Social Survey and other polls, broken down by sex, race, age, and political leanings. I like his take on things, and I especially like his colors as used in his bar graphs. They don't have the usual intentionally arbitrary color schemes used for political correctness. (Have you read The Legend of Schooldigger?) However, lots of polling data is just plain worthless, as I found out myself from being a respondent this past December. I got tired of the discussions of data that may be meaningless.
When Mr. Epigone writes his occasional finance-themed posts, he is right on the money, IMO. He comes off as a Ron Paulite, and he tries his best to sound the alarm for what's coming. This latest one is only 5 short paragraphs that'll take one minute to read. I urge the Peak Stupidity reader to click on this one.
Enjoy them both. Perhaps "enjoy" is not the right word, as neither writes about anything happy but just the truth.
PS: I haven't commented much at all under Audacious Epigone's posts, because I just don't like a majority of the commenting clientele that much. There are the guys that write under Steve Sailer** too. The other A.E. commenters are OK people too, and not flat-out Commies or total anti-Americans, such as those under many of unz.com's other writers. They just seem naive without an understanding of the root of our problems. Perhaps it's a younger crowd in general.
* See also Part 2 and Part 3.
** That includes our commenter "The Alarmist" under this one. Alarmist, I only didn't mash agree on this one because I think (hope anyway) that Americans will not give up their gold to the US Feral Gov't, just as most didn't during Roosevelt's confiscation attempt.
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National Healthcare: Socialism at its finest - Part 3
Posted On: Friday - June 11th 2021 9:34AM MST
In Topics: Economics Americans Healthcare Stupidity Inflation
(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)
In Part 2 of this quick look at the question of Nationalized healthcare, something lots of Americans figure would be just peachy, taking the side of the public defender, Peak Stupidity produced Exhibit A: The British National Health service. It's not like we got in depth on this, but we brought up the problems of government bureaucracy and government control, the latter of which I think is the worst of it, with any government run system of well, anything. It's not just about registering and titling vehicles, though. This is 20% of the economy and a life-and-death issue by definition.
Let's put on our prosecutor's hat now, if His Honor will indulge. (Carrying of cell phones, even for web surfing, no matter how many hours you have to wait for your rolling-through-the-stop-sign charge, is strictly verboten!). We bring up Exhibit B. (Big GASP! from the jurors.) Whaaa? What's that?! I present to you the case of pre-1980s America. The date is arguable, as some would go back to the big Socialism push, medicaid/care included in the mid-1960s.
Our commenter MBlanc46, under Part 2 post, left a comment that stole some of the prosecution's thunder here. He can go back longer than I can, but it's not like lots of us don't have parents who regaled us with stories. Even the young people who can't imagine any such thing, do they talk to their parents, grandparents or friends thereof? Oh, right, "OK boomer", as in "this is not on my phone, so I don't believe a word of it" would be the attitude.
"They made house calls." Yes, I never experienced this, but that is the case. I'm not going to put this one on the advantages of the much-closer-to free market system that was in place. Maybe it was the availability of a 2nd car for the wife, or even a 1st car for some. Perhaps medicine had gotten too advanced to be regularly practiced out of a bag the size of a big toiletry kit.
Compared to the shitshow of today, US Feral Government and State governments were not involved in the medical system to any significant amount prior to medicare/caid). Of course, there were State boards for doctors (nurses too, I guess) and State supported medical schools to give benefit to the State. How much did the government have to do with how Doctor Jones ran his practice, especially the billing part of it? You pay your money to the nice lady on the way out. Maybe you presented an insurance card (more on this). Maybe you were one of those deadbeats, but then that was a problem for any small business. The difference from today is that nobody dictated that you must keep treating the deadbeats and treat what are obviously the new deadbeats as they show up.
OK, that brings up charity and the hospitals, many of which were charity run. Some people simply can't pay their way, and not many of us are OK with letting them die out there on the hospital steps. People, and most especially Americans are very charitable, when the government hasn't usurped that with its own fake charity with their money. (This is a subject for another post.)
There are charity hospitals today, though to a lesser amount. Profit or non-profit, the doctors (rightly) and hospital admins. (not so rightly) make lots of money, the nurses get the going rate, and then there's the issue of the revenue. When it comes down to the complicated bureaucratic system of today, they all must play by the same government-made rules.
Besides the important aspect of consumer choice, the prices for medical care back in the old days reflected the lack of the burden of paying for so many deadbeats, and the decreased costs of employing personnel to figure it all out.* As I wrote in Part 1, the damn system is so complex that this operation of 51 employees that a friend ran had 11 people just in billing. They don't make as much as doctors but probably pretty close to what the office nurses make. Doctors were only 2 or 3 out of the 50, so that means this totally unproductive cost is ~20% of the payroll.
I've got a few numbers, and I'll give one of mine and Mr. Blanc's . A friend found a bill from his Mom for the hospital charges for his birth in the mid-1960s: $300 or $350, it was one or the other. For us 10 years ago: $3,500 in advance, if everything went smoothly, doctor and epidural shot not included. That's a factor of 10 in 45 years. This site gives me a 7x increase to be expected, but you all know what Peak Stupidity thinks of the official inflation numbers, especially as of the last decade (not a factor in this calculation). That's not too bad, surprisingly, but then, I don't know if I can determine, or my friend can, whether that price in the mid-1960s was for all charges. For us we'd be talking over 10 grand, but then that includes ultrasounds (see Part 1 with a discussion of the changes in medical science/tech vs. the business end).
Mr. Blanc's example was a $2 bill for a doctor visit for him Mom in the early 1950s. I suppose if you know the guy well, and it's not your first visit, you could get away with $75 now, cash on the barrel head. That's a factor of 35 (I like round numbers, to fit with my lack of faith in the accuracy of the inflation numbers), but that same inflation (cpi) site would get me a factor of over 10, using 1950 - 2021. Hmmm. I would guess we are paying more in "real" dollars in general. Yes, we get new treatments that wouldn't have been possible in 1950, but then, again, see Part 1.
What I especially miss about lack of government involvement in the old system that worked for America is this: We couldn't have had a Kung Flu PanicFest, IMO. Sure, the Lyin' Press was a thing, and there were only 3 channels (OK, 4 if you count that "learning channel") of TV that could set the narrative. I don't think Feral Gov't officials were quite as corrupt, self-serving, and non-caring about Americans. The big difference is the medical system. Without government controlling the business end of healthcare to the degree it does now, what could it do? Send posters? Yes, send posters. Yes, see I have no problem with a Center for Disease Control that compiles data and issues warnings. Back in the day before the web, your Doc might get some info sent to medical establishments all around with warnings and advice about the new flu or what-have-you. Based on his judgement your Doc could heed it and even put up the poster in the waiting room, or say "bullshit" and throw it in the trash. Then there's that middle ground of just keeping in mind they signs to look for in his patients. Big incentives could not be given to insurance companies (via eliminated co-pays and deductibles), because the Feral Government was not in bed with them yet.
That brings up insurance. When trying to explain the better way of the past (in America, at least) in a few acrimonious comment exchanges I'd have on unz.com threads, I'd always run into this: "What if I'm in a serious car wreck?!" for a young person or "What if I get cancer that costs a million dollars to treat?!" Hey, I never said insurance was not a valid business model. If the insurance company can figure rates the RIGHT way, without dictates about pre-existing conditions, forced payments for transgender surgery, etc., prices can still be pretty damn low for a young person or even reasonable for someone older with no existing serious problems. "Do the math!", as they say, and believe me, there's a whole field for that, consisting of people called actuaries.
The big difference between actual simple insurance plans vs. what people call "insurance" today, is that today's plans are healthcare plans, not insurance plans. One doesn't get oil changes, brake jobs, and bodywork for his car paid for by insurance, as opposed to check-ups, unnecessary visits to the doctor for stupid shit, and well transgender surgery. I have gotten simple catastrophic health care insurance before, and it was not too bad in price. If I had stepped on a nail though, well, it didn't cover squat, and it wasn't supposed to.
In fact, when I was in a wreck myself, it was (very thankfully!) not too big a deal, and I paid my own money. However, when the doctor mentioned a CAT scan, "just in case", I asked the price. "$1,200? Nah, I'll be OK. Thanks."
The problem with economics of healthcare now is that the incentive for irresponsibility is built into the system. People know that some government agency or insurance company (as in, the rest of us) will cover them anyway, no matter if they don't worry about insurance. This lack of responsibility is very hard to reverse. That will be the subject of the final post on this.
* This is why I HATE paying someone to do my taxes and never have so far. It irks me to have to pay more money just to get through the system that I hate to begin with!
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Animal Farm: Some allegories are more equal than others
Posted On: Wednesday - June 9th 2021 4:31PM MST
In Topics: Books Socialism/Communism
This post is not supposed to be a book review [though we'll see how that pans out - Ed]. From commenter MBlanc46's recommendation I read this short George Orwell novel that most of you probably read in high school. (I'm not sure how I skipped it.) It'd be presumptuous to review one of the classics. Peak Stupidity is presumptuous enough to do so nevertheless, but, no, we won't bore the reader with a review*.
This was to be about the evolution of the thoughts of writers that are seen as the classic authors, but that'll be another post, as I just want to write about Mr. Orwell's state of intellectual development at the time of his writing Animal Farm. I know he was a fairly prolific writer in his short period only 15 years (mid-1930s till 1984 in 1949) of writing books, but I'm thinking just of 3 books here. They would be Homage to Catalonia - reviewed by PS here - Animal Farm, and 1984. He wrote Animal Farm at the 70% point in this writing career, so I would assume he'd have had his ideological act together by this time.
I have long heard the expressions "four legs good, two legs bad, and especially "some animals are more equal than others" from the book. It is an allegory, using the running of a farm by the animals to demonstrate an ideological point. What is that point?
I should have known better, as Mr. Orwell was said to be a Socialist to the end. From the reading of 1984 the only book I'd read from him until recently, I could not discern that, as it is a warning about absolute Totalitarianism. To me, a warning about Communism/Socialism goes right along with that.
After getting about 1/2 way into the story of the Animal Farm, I realized that the allegory was not what I'd thought for years it was. Mr. Orwell tells a story of how an attempt at Socialism can go bad. He has nothing against the system at all. He wrote this allegory to disparage the problems that he saw with the Soviet Communism that had effected him directly during his time in Spain, fighting for the Commie side in the civil war. It is a pretty specific to the events that unfolded there. In a blog comment** someone noted that the story of the two top pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, was written to be about Lenin and Trotsky. There is the influence of the outside world, the need to always have an enemy to unite the people, well, the animals, the use of literal attack dogs by the Dear Leader, and the historical revisionism and un-personing, such as the USSR was known to practice. (It worked nicely on animals with short memories.)
That's a good, but very specific allegory. I have no problem with anyone writing satirically about the old USSR. Orwell wrote this one at the very beginning of the Cold War, a nice help for those trying to expose the lies of the Communists.
This was not the allegory I had expected, however. It seems everything on Animal Farm would have worked out OK, per Mr. Orwell, had the bad animals not ruined things. (This is very much as he thought the military could run just fine with no chain of command, but equal footing for everyone, in Homage to Catalonia.)
Nah, I'd have rather read a story in which the hardworking horse Boxer finally got fed up with putting in more effort for no reward, as other animals, especially the damn cat, were wanking off. There should have been a page or two about the weekly animal meetings in which the many chickens and their numerous chicks, born to the least-productive egg-laying hens and given the vote at 18 weeks, outvote the dogs, pigs, horses, and sheep, giving themselves large rations. Then, at a subsequent weekly meeting, Muriel the goat, pissed off about the unfairness of it all, goes ahead and eats all copies of the ballots, causing a riot that results in the construction of an animal penitentiary, something they all thought was in their past.
Perhaps, I'm a little harsh on the author. He did, after all, have the pigs decide that their leadership work was worth more pay and better accommodations. That was a big part of the story, of course, but I'm not sure George Orwell actually got it. That's bound to happen because some animals and some people simply ARE better than others, and we can't all be equal. Did he get that?
I don't know, and it sounds presumptuous [yes, it is, VERY! - Ed], but maybe I coulda' written a better Animal Farm. OK, if not me, Ron Paul, how 'bout?
* I'll at least write this again though, as I did for his last book: For all that's decent, and I'm talking to YOU, C. M. Woodhouse, YOU! DO! NOT! GIVE! AWAY! THE! STORY! IN THE INTRODUCTION!, assholes. (Same goes for the preface, but Russell Baker got this.) I know this is a classic that I should have read already, but I haven't, OK? Maybe this is an Orwellian thing.
** On unz.com I guess. I'd thought for sure one of our readers mentioned this, but I can't find that comment for the life of me.
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