Why I Race: Part 1

There is a concept in business and economics that is known as opportunity cost. Simply put, opportunity cost is the very simple idea that every choice I make for allocation of scare and limited resources is mutually exclusive from every other allocation for those resources. Because this is true; how we allocate our resources have an extended value beyond the simple accounting cost (aka, the price on the tag). This becomes especially important when you factor in the most precious scarce resource of all… time.

I have decided to write these words; because frankly, they have plagued me long enough; I’ve simply carried this message in my heart for long enough to know that the only way I can ever be free of this burden is to face it head on and share it with all of you; who for some reason love and support me despite the fact that I have done so very little to deserve said love and support, but we’ll get into that soon enough. My objective in putting these words to the digital page is to hopefully find some peace and some understanding for myself; to face some harsh truths about myself, and hopefully to find something somewhat resembling peace inside this all too noisy head of mine lately.

I will be brutally honest with myself and you the reader. I will speak of things that some of you reading were possibly involved in. Those who’d rather not go down this particular rabbit hole with me; I completely understand. There’s a lot to be said for burning the fucker down and never looking back.  That’s just never been me.

For those of you leaving here; I love you always. For those of you coming with me… buckle up and hold on tight; because I have a bit of a lead foot….

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It was a chilly and overcast Monday afternoon in 2001 when I learned the concept of opportunity cost better than most. I had just gotten out of my final class of the day and was on my way home to sit down and write a term paper I hadn’t even started that was due the next day. That’s always been my style; I need the pressure of a deadline to do my best work; but I digress. I had no sooner turned on to I-275; the 4 mile stretch of road that connects Downtown Knoxville where the University is to the sub urbs of North Knoxville where I lived when my cell phone rang….

“Hey Dad, what’s up?”

The conversation was short and uneventful. He bitched about work; I bitched about class. He said he had an airplane coming in a few hours later to turn; I told him I had a paper to write. He probably bitched at me when I told him it was due the next day and I hadn’t even started it. I probably told him not to worry so much; we both know when the shit hits the fan; I handle my business. The conversation wrapped up and he said the words to me I’ll never forget…

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And with that, he was gone. All I saw looking back at me on the long, slender Sanyo phone’s green and black LED display was the date….Monday, February 19^th, 2001.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I wrote the paper. I’m sure I was chatting on line with T because thanks to the advent of the internet and Yahoo Instant Messenger; I was chatting online with T pretty much every chance I got. T had been my best friend for years; but you see she lives far away from me and well distance is a thing. We both wanted to explore more for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until I started dating R the year prior that T really was ready to take the plunge; because well. R lived even further away from me than T did and I had to be the asshole to make it known that long distance can kind of sort of work. However, at this point in our lives both of us were free of the obligations that come with other people’s feelings and we could explore what was there; and we were having a ball doing exactly that. Things were progressing very nicely. I chatted with her, I wrote my paper, and I went to bed. Just another day in paradise…

I awoke the next morning to a banging on my door. My bedroom was the closer of the two to the front door but I am a very sound sleeper so it took a while to get me to stir. When I woke up and heard the increasingly more forceful knocks I immediately looked at my clock: 0530 (Got to love military time).

When I got to the door I was half asleep; so I did what any groggy 21 year old kid would do when a loud banging at his front door at an ungodly hour by someone who could be Ed McMahon with a Publisher’s Clearing House check or an ax-murdering psychopath would do. I whipped it wide open to find neither. Instead it was my entire extended family; my aunt, my uncle, both of my cousins.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Forgetting about the time and place and how out of the ordinary this visit was.

“Mikey, we need to talk” (to this day only blood relatives and T are allowed to call me Mikey and live to tell the story) “Your dad had a heart attack this morning and….he didn’t make it. He’s gone.”

 “Okay; Does Maw-Maw know? Does M know? Does T* (Dad also was dating a T at the time) know?” My father trained me well. No way was a little thing like his death going to stop this mission from firing. Maw-Maw is a southern name for grandmother; M was to my dad what T is to me;  the brass ring; but she also was the executor of his estate so informing her was a two pronged objective…she had work to do; and informing T* was just essential.

Brief Side Note: As more and more time has gone on; the parallels between dad’s T* and my own are downright uncanny. They became best friends during our two year tour on the Illinois side of the river just outside St. Louis in a town called Belleville. At the time T* was married and raising two small kids. Rumors flew; but I knew my dad; I knew the resentment he had towards my mother for her not being afraid to wipe her ass with the promise to love, honor and cherish, even if anything had happened, he’d immediately be angry at himself and resent her forever. As such, it took 10 years of waiting before they got together; but after almost a year of the best and healthiest relationship of my dad’s life he had to go and die.

Opportunity Cost.  I’ll call you tomorrow.

None of the three women had been told.  I told Maw-Maw and M. My uncle S told T*.  Nothing I have ever had to do physically or emotionally will ever compare with telling my grandmother that she had lost her 2^nd child. My grandmother had 5 children (one was stillborn and was never named), the rest were 4 boys; of which my dad was the 2^nd oldest. I will go to my grave believing that the only thing harder than losing a parent is losing a child.

I spent the rest of the morning handling what needed to be handled. I picked out my father’s casket. I helped write his obituary. I told who needed to be told. Then I grabbed lunch, and I went to class. I handed the paper in on time. I went to my next class too. Then I went to work.

When I told T, when I told R, and when I told countless other people of my father’s passing they all expressed the same sentiment: WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?

To which I had pretty much the same response…

“Falling behind in my class work and starving to death isn’t going to bring him back is it? He’s still going to be fucking dead!” I literally heard those words in my head every single time I thought about stopping and taking it in. I heard my dad say “I’m gone and I’m not coming back, nothing you do now is going to change that; so keep doing what you are doing until I see you again!” So I did what I do. I did not miss one class, I did not miss one minute of work, my bought and paid for trip to see T went off without a hitch (and is still one of the best weekends of my entire life HANDS DOWN); however, there was one concern…. I didn’t shed a single tear until the day of the funeral. Seriously, until I saw my dad’s lifeless corpse in the baby blue casket; looking PERFECT in his Air Force Dress Blues, at which time I promptly lost my shit.

I cried as hard and as loud as I have before and I am not sure I have since. Everything I had been carrying with me for a week all came back at me at once. I would later learn from a professor in my conflict resolution class that this was called “Gunnysacking” and was about as unhealthy a behavior as you can get mentally and emotionally; but in that moment, I did what I had to do to execute the mission. Laying there in the casket; my dad was on display for all to celebrate his life, mission accomplished, you can cry now. And cry I did.

1. I will always place the mission first.

(To be continued)

Modern American Online Courtship

How did I get here?

Looking over my social media lately, there seems to be a real disconnect in the courting process. A typical interaction may go something like this:

Person One makes a perfectly safe, innocuous compliment something to the effect of "You have a beautiful smile" or "You're very pretty"

Person Two responds with a non-committal acknowledgement which usually just seems like they are being polite. "Thanks!"

Person One then comes back with a COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE proposition or "compliment" such as "R U DTF?" or "You have great dick sucking lips"

Person Two then responds with a justifiable amount of righteous indignation; usually involving a copious amount of swear words and name calling...or just completely ignoring the comment and the person from then on out.

Person One then gets genuinely butt-hurt and starts outright insulting Person Two. "Meh, your ass is fat anyway, whore!"

Really folks? This is where we're at as a society in 2015 that THIS is what is deemed acceptable behavior when not only TALKING to our fellow human beings, but trying to romantically court them?  I'm far from a Don Juan (as my personal statistics in this arena will tell you when I share them in a minute), but MOST of the women I've been intimate with are still in my life on at least a base social level. This is because even though our romantic involvement may have fizzled, I at least knew the basic tenant of any meaningful relationship; romantic or otherwise, is to respect who they are as a person.

Let's go inside the numbers about yours truly:

- I had my V-Card punched at 20. Yes I went my entire High School career and first 2 years of College without getting laid.

- In total, I've had eight partners. Of those eight; two were essentially one night stands (though I didn't want either of them to be that way), and one was a fuck buddy arrangement that both of us were very clear about. going in. The rest were serious, committed relationships.

- For those that don't want to do the math, that's 8 partners in 15 years, I average a new, unique partner every 22 months. Which given the level of commitment I tend to put into my romantic endeavors seems perfectly reasonable to me.

- Here's what is important to note about why I feel even REMOTELY qualified to speak about any of the above. 100% of my sexual partners, I met on line. ALL of them! OkCupid, Craigslist, MySpace, LiveJournal, ICQ, and for the truly old school, the Prodigy Online service.

I may not be a pick up artist IRL; (but there's no shortage of guys who can tell you how to pick up women in bars...go read them) but when it comes to online interactions; I'll put my numbers against anybody. So with that said, here's what person 1 and 2 NEED to know if they are going to try and use the internet to get laid going forward...

1) Looks matter... 

Don't kid yourself into thinking they don't. We were all brought up with the "You can't judge a book by looking at the cover" mantra; but here's the thing, you can absolutely determine if the book is one you WANT TO READ by looking at the cover, otherwise, there would be nothing on covers at all. Need a visual aid? Grab two hardcover books, any two will do just so long as they have removable paper coverings on them. Remove the covers. What do you see? Probably boring brown, nondescript binding. Who wants to explore that further? It could be the greatest story ever told; but I'd never know because I have no way of determining whether I want to open the cover and explore the story further. The same is true of people. My personality could be everything another person is looking for; but if the physical attraction isn't there; then it's just not going to matter. The best chance I have is getting my friend zoned. (More on this later)

2) ... but they aren't everything!  

Good looks will get you in the game; but you will need some substance to keep you in it. I know of good looking dudes who NEVER get laid because they are socially awkward, clingy, needy, insecure, or just plain BORING! It's absolutely essential that your personality jives with the person you are engaging and that you have things to talk about or the whole thing will fizzle. While I am a man writing this blog, this is ESPECIALLY true for you women; because there is absolutely NOTHING more frustrating than talking to a woman who clearly is GORGEOUS and has spent her whole life coasting upon that fact and put ZERO effort into developing anything resembling substance. Call it the Kelly Bundy affect...

3) It's a numbers game. 

This is the one thing that Person One is getting correct above. You're going to get shot down; A LOT. Where he/she is making their mistake is by getting all indignant and pissed off about the fact that they are being rejected. You can't take this kind of thing personally. Basically Person Two is a stranger to you; and in our scenario, you just offended every sensibility this person has by acting like a douche, so you pretty much deserve it. Still, as any good salesman will tell you; the rejections you receive today don't matter, because you've got a calendar full of appointments for the next month and all you need is one yes and you make commission that month.

3) Honesty is crucial to all involved ESPECIALLY TO YOURSELF!

In 2015 we've reached a weird place where our social identity is boiled down to a nice, neat little package. Culturally, everyone seems to be highly desirous of grouping and labeling everyone as much as possible. I have fought against these labels (and against a lot of what is considered socially acceptable for that matter) most of my life. However, as human beings we place such a premium on our intimate relationships (especially ones that have us getting laid on the regular) that we tend to lose focus of who we are as individuals. Being fake or phony won't get you laid; all it will do is make you miserable. Don't ask me how I know...

4) Attraction is a funny thing. 

Here's where the "Friend Zone" comes in to play. Sometimes two people can consider one another physically attractive; and have a great emotional and philosophical connection, and it's just not there. When that lack of attraction is mutual, then no harm, no foul, I have many a platonic friend that I am forever grateful for; however, when one person is VERY attracted to the other and the other is just not interested; difficult choices must be made.

5) Know your expectations/limitations. 

The only other interaction I see more often than the one outlined at the beginning of this tirade is the one where person one goes the complete other way and puts person two on a complete pedestal and won't shut up about how beautiful he/she is. This is a bad look bro. It's a double edged sword that kills not only makes Person Two live up to completely unrealistic expectations, but it makes Person One seem completely insecure and frankly; downright creepy. This was a mistake I commonly made early on in my twenties; and I still see it all the time anytime one of my Hooter girl friends posts a particularly good selfie... it's truly cringe worthy.

6) Putting it all together! 

Go look in the mirror; do you like what you see? HONESTLY! If you don't, there's a pretty good chance other people won't either. This is not because you are actually ugly but rather because you see yourself as unattractive. People are drawn to others who are at peace with who they are, who are outgoing, confident, and self-assured. They tend to retreat from people who are insecure, cause drama, and are generally just miserable pricks. When you look good, you feel good; but (I can't stress this enough) looking good is NOT a prerequisite for feeling good. As near as I can tell, feeling good is just something that happens when you quit screwing around and really focus on #3 above.... and you only need one person's permission to be happy, yours.



This blog post was heavily inspired by the following EXCELLENT works listed below; the links are provided as a service to you the dear reader:

"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck" by Mark Manson: http://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck

"The Sexodus" (Part 1 and Part 2) by Milo Yiannopoulos: Part One Part Two

Graveyard Economics (The Positive Relationship between Skills and Wages)

It's fairly safe to say that the one attribute all workers share is that they feel like they should earn more for what they do. I base this on an assumption that if you walked up to any given person on the street and asked them "Would you take more money for doing the same job?" The answer would certainly NOT be "Oh no, I couldn't think about taking any more money for this job, I'm completely satiated and would absolutely REFUSE to take one cent more!" Conversely, I doubt the same person would respond with a proposal to do the same job for less money with "Oh thank heavens, I'm so ridiculously overcompensated, I've long hoped someone would come and relieve me of this terrible burden of prosperity and indulgence!"

If the above is true, we can then simplify the argument to say that most people would consider themselves underpaid (or at best, fairly compensated), while nobody would truly consider themselves overpaid. So why do stories like the "America’s List of Companies With the Most Low-Wage Workers Will Piss You Off" continue to see the light of day?

My personal theory is that too many people don't realize that wages, prices, and the lot are nothing but NUMBERS, and like all quantifiable data; they are relative to the time and place around them.

Two quick and dirty examples:

1) In Mad Men, Don Draper writes a check for $6,000.00 to facilitate the test drive of a top of the line Jaguar Convertible sans escort. This pays for the car's $5,600.00 sticker price in full. A similar vehicle today would start at $79,000 according to Jaguar's US website.

2) I recently found myself pondering why a friend in the service industry would consider earning $200 a "good night" (admittedly, I wasn't the most mentally sharp fellow this weekend). After all, a lot of paychecks for people who make "good money" can be anywhere from $1,200 - $2,000. But then I realized that 200/8 = 25. So yeah, $25 per hour is a job I would happily sign on for. In fact, it's the possibility of these kinds of earnings that keep just about every current sales job (servers, waitresses and bartenders included) staffed.

So great, prices and wages are relative and not fixed concepts; why does that mean that companies like the twenty listed above can have so many people working for so little cash?

The answer lies in skillset. Of the twenty companies listed; only ONE (19: Sodexo) has even the possibility that the work staff might need some form of specific training or skillset to acquire employment. The rest literally have the base level of qualifications of essentially be an average human being with basic communication and survival skills. You need only be a fresh glob of human clay that can be molded into whatever the company want's you to be.

Let's start with number 1: Wal-Mart Stores. Now Wal-Mart is patient zero in a lot of people's minds about what is wrong with just about everything in America. I've long been putting off writing a blog specifically ON Wal-Mart just because it's such a quagmire of confusion that what comes out is a gigantic word salad that doesn't heighten the thinking of anyone. However, for the purposes of our discussion, let's focus on what most of us consider to be a "Wal-Mart Employee", the cashier.

What particular skills does one need to be a cashier at Wal-Mart? Having problems thinking of any? How about this; what separates one particular Wal-Mart cashier from another? Yeah, that didn't help either. One last factor may provide some insight; if a cashier quits and storms out of the store in frustration, what is the impact on the operation? That one is at least easy to answer. . . minimal. There might be longer lines for the rest of that shift until another cashier can be hired from the very limited population of "Everyone" but at the end of the day the cashier is nothing more than a cog in the machine. I don't know much about machinery or moving parts but I do know one thing about cogs. . . you don't want to pay very much for them. The reason being is because the more it costs to OFFER something, the more the end customer will be expected to PAY for it.

To illustrate this point even further, let's delve into the title of this blog; "Graveyard Economics" I came up with this idea while discussing the minimum wage with a friend. The idea works something like this:

Let's say I own a cemetery, this means digging graves is my primary order of business. As such, I'm going to need to hire grave diggers. What criteria do I need in my candidates for grave digger? Pretty much I just need you to be able to use shovel to dig a hole in the earth that meets standard dimensions. For the sake of our purposes, lets assume that grave diggers are amazing with shovels and can dig one complete grave per day. Thusly, my ratio of graves dug per day to grave diggers is a simple 1:1. In this circumstance, it is in my best interest to hire as many grave diggers as needed to meet the current mortality rate; or at a minimum, my average burial rate in a given season.

Now should I pay my grave diggers? Just to keep the math simple, let's say I have a need for 8 graves dug per day and current minimum wage is 7.25/hour. Well, if I have to pay each grave digger 7.25/hour and I need 8 of them; then I need to charge at least 58.00/grave to break even on my labor costs.

Now let's make two small adjustments to our environment; both of which will result in price decreases:

1) The elimination of a minimum wage. Instead of being forced to pay $7.25 for each worker required; I can pay my workers as little as $0.01. Let's say the caliber of digger I'm working for cannot be hired for less than $2.00/hour. (That is to say that I can hire workers at $0.01/hour, but the decrease in productivity I'd experience would outweigh the savings I'd receive in wages). So, now instead of my 8 workers costing me 58.00, they now cost me 16.00, thusly my minimum price to charge for graves is now $16.00

2) The implementation of technology. Let's say instead of investing in more guys with shovels, I buy an earth mover, and hire one man to operate it. A skilled machine operator can dig a standard sized grave in about 45 minutes. So instead of hiring 8 guys to dig one grave each, I now have one guy with a machine who is capable of digging up to 8 graves per day. Because he does the job of 8 people with a job description of $2.00/person, he can realistically demand $16.00 per hour and I as an employer will gladly pay it because I can hire one guy to do the job of 8. Also, in this instance, my price again drops to $16.00

The bottom line is that low wages don't "piss me off" because they are a factor of life. Free Market Capitalism will justify what workers can and should be paid for their individual skillset. Concepts like the "living wage" have no place in pure capitalism. Our wages and prices have increased drastically over the last half century because there has been entirely too much tinkering and crony capitalism taking place across our nation. The world doesn't owe anyone anything, and it's long time we all realized that wages and prices are just numbers, and while deflation is TERRIBLE for us internationally, domestically it is LONG overdue.

Amendment 1 101

Two things that may surprise you to know:
1.) I am not a resident of the state of North Carolina.
2.) I am not a homosexual.

So why am I about to write my first blog in 8 months about Amendment 101? Because even though I have about as much interest in this issue as I do dipping my balls in battery acid, I suppose really don't want to be the only person who hasn't expressed an opinion about something that probably will never affect them in any meaningful way.

It started on Facebook
My first exposure to "Amendment One" came when a friend of mine (who thankfully is at a minimum a North Carolina resident) shared this on their Facebook wall:

Like all good propaganda pieces, it does a fantastic job of framing the question on its own terms and ignoring its own hypocrisy (Really, you're going to speak about people's rights but reach a possible conclusion that someone is not entitled to the most basic right of them all? Just shows to go ya!)

Like all matters geared towards stirring up the simple minded; I gave it all the thought and consideration I could muster before returning to something far more important to me, playing NCAA Football on my X-box or double-fisting Doritos Tacos and Mountain Dew. With classes finishing up and final exams underway, I really didn't give it a second thought until yesterday.


OMGZ DA PEEPLES OF NC R TEH STOOPIDS + HATEFUL! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ARE SO MEAN AND DUM! :(

This obviously is something of an oversimplification, but after reading it all day long (mostly from people who I KNOW are not residents of North Carolina and I'm fairly certain are not homosexual), that's eventually how it started to come across.

Now full of frustration and outrage; I decided that I should go find out what everyone has their panties in a wad about. After trekking through the blogosphere; I finally found this on ballotpedia:

North Carolina Same-Sex Marriage, Amendment 1

From this page, it conveniently has the ballot language actual North Carolina voters saw and the text proposed to be added to the N.C. State Constitution:

Ballot Language: Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

So North Carolina is not going to recognize any other domestic unions? Only a man and a woman? Not a man and a piano? Not a woman and a lava lamp (which actually sounds kind of hot when I put words to paper about it)?  Man and woman only. Gotcha. Notice that this ballot does not say that all other "don't call it a marriage" is a sin, an abomination and that all homosexuals are condemned to a life of hellfire, it says that other unions are not legally recognized in the state of North Carolina...(we'll come back to this, so pay attention.)

Constitutional Language: Sec. 6. Marriage
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

Okay, so we repeat the ballot language. Then we get into . . . you've got to be shitting me! Contract law? Everyone has got their assholes puckered up over fucking contract law! Where's the outrage over THAT little nugget; that this oh so sacred institution of two separate entities coming together to form one is basically boiled down to a business transaction.

And therein lies the rub. The simple fact of the matter is that North Carolina doesn't want the logistical headache of implementing all the special cases that come with "legally recognizing" a legal marriage. Traditional marriage is nice, simple, clean. Easy to give them a small simple tax break for buying a house and spitting out a couple of kids. When you open up the door that says "marriage" can now be between any two consenting adults, well that just makes it a gigantic quagmire of bureaucracy.

In other words: It's not an issue of morality, it's an issue of paperwork, nothing more, nothing less!

And while we're on the subject:

Love and Marriage, Goes Together Like Two Sole-Proprietorships in a Domestic Merger.
When did we get this idea that for a marriage to be considered valid, it had to be recognized by anybody but God and the two entities within that marriage? Isn't one of the great love stories of our time "True Romance" based upon a marriage of two people swearing their love for one another before God on a bridge with nobody else around for miles in any direction? Clearly they have no concern over whether their marriage is "legally recognized by the state" or not (as they have so much respect for laws and authority in that film anyway), yet their marriage is a perfectly happy one. Why? Because they love each other and have compatible life structure, that's all that is needed to make "marriage" work.

But for reasons that other people have committed to paper in much better ways in other venues; this most basic private arrangement has become an extremely social issue. Suddenly because I'm (legally) married, I'm entitled to a better tax rate, I'm entitled to cheaper benefits. My private life has social consequences. At the end of the day; THIS is why people are pissed off. 

You're Here, You're Queer, I Don't Give Two Shits!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it" - Agent K "Men in Black"

Here's my problem with most homosexual issues; (Read as "I really want to do this, but I can't because I am GAY") they are based in the premise that being a homosexual is their sole identifying characteristic and it trumps all over aspect of life. For example:

"I want to serve in the military, but I can't because I'm GAY"
"I want to get (legally) married, but I can't because I'm GAY"
"My life partner and I want to move to North Carolina but we can't because we're GAY"

Let me be perfectly clear on this; homosexuality is NOT a lifestyle choice; because as my homosexual friends tell me early and often, if I could choose to be gay, I could do very well for myself. However, letting your homosexuality be your sole social identifier that trumps all others IS a lifestyle choice.

This is an economics blog, economics is all about trade-offs and choices. Which is more important to you:

- Being openly gay, or serving in the military? Choose one (not necessary anymore, but still)
- Being gay and living with a compatible partner or doing so and getting "marriage" benefits?
- Doing the above, and living in North Carolina/any other state that doesn't recognize non-traditional marriage.

Life is about choices, whether straight, gay, or asexual, nobody can have it all.

Fair? Who's the Fucking Nihilist Here? What Are You a Bunch of Fucking Crybabies?
Ask any 4 year old if life is "fair" and they should tell you without hesitation the answer because their parent will tell them early and often that it isn't. For example, I know that there will be more than a couple of people who will label me as ignorant (despite showing and citing my research above), stupid (yes, I have a 3.05 GPA with almost 200 undergraduate level credit hours at a major university, I'm clearly a moron), homophobe (I'm not afraid of homosexuality, I'm indifferent towards it) based solely on the worlds I've written in this piece. Is that fair? Probably not. Does it matter to me? Not even a little bit. Fortunately for me, I'm not alone.

As I've said before; this blog is NOT about ideology, it's about data. Fortunately, one other piece of information my friends at ballotpedia provided was the voting results on Amendment 1. See below:

Amendment 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
a Yes		1,303,952	61.05%
No		831,788	38.95%

 As you can see, the people who voted, chose overwhelmingly in favor of the issue. However; what about the people who DIDN'T vote?

1,303,952 + 831,788= 2,135,740. According to Google, the population of the state of North Carolina (as of 2011 data) is 9,656,401. When we adjust our results for this data, the results are even more revealing. as apparently 7,520,661 citizens of the great state of North Carolina decided that they didn't care one way or the other about this issue.

Are they all ignorant, stupid, homophobes and/or religious zealots? Hell, is it even conceivable that all of them are STRAIGHT? Seven and a half million people and not a single homosexual? It seems statistically unlikely* Why this matter is of grave importance, so much so that straight people from other states feel the need to judge and insult complete strangers through blogs and social media for allowing their populace to democratically decide the laws of their land; as granted by the 10th Amendment by the United States Constitution while 7.5 MILLION North Carolina residents decided to do something else.

But that's okay, they are all stupid hick zealot homophobes right? Must be. It couldn't be that they have better things to do than worry about what a complete stranger thinks about them or what their state or is saying about them on Facebook. Maybe...

But one thing is certain; by not voting, they clearly don't give a shit about something that certainly would affect them in . The real question is; why do you?

*- According to About.com, a conservative estimate of "alternative lifestyles (GLBT)" is about 3.8% of a given population. This means that in North Carolina, a safe estimate would be 285,786 who did not participate in the voting.

Occupy Hoovervilles

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last several weeks; you've been exposed to the latest battlefront in the class warfare between the haves and the have nots commonly referred to as "Occupy Wall St." If for some reason you haven't been paying attention; here is the closest thing I've found to a mission statement from www.occupywallst.org.

"Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."
 
I've read that gibberish several times now, and I'll be damned if I can find anything in that word salad that even remotely resembles anything that isn't a jingo laden talking point, but what I take away from it is essentially that the entities that have the wealth are the ones who can effectively peddle influence and power within society. Upon putting this thought from virtual pen to virtual paper; two questions arise:

1.) In exactly what developed and generally wealthy society has this NOT been true?
2.) What exactly would you suggest we do about it?

The answer to the first one is largely rhetorical, because in the history of Western Civilization I cannot think a single instance where wealth and power were not highly correlated (which is why my PERSONAL ideology is one based in individual people developing their OWN wealth and power base, but that's another blog for another day). However, the answer to question two; once all is said and done has only one solution*...the mass redistribution of wealth.

Let me be clear, when I say "mass redistribution of wealth" I mean exactly that. You see; have nots have been pissed off at haves ever since the first cow farmer traded for a long horn. There is a lot of money and power to be made by continually pointing out that there is always someone who has more than you; and despite what your mother told you when you were seven "It's not fair" IS a valid argument when the issue at stake is microeconomics.

The Raw Data
From www.usdebtclock.org as of this writing:
- M2 Money Supply: $9,435,272,000,000
- US Gross Domestic Product: $14,979,449,000,000
- US Total Debt: $54,562,973,000,000
- US Population: 312,471,569
- US Households: 82,384,689

For our purposes, we'll consider M2 Money Supply to be the liquid dollar value of all Cash-Cash equivalent assets held within U.S. borders, and Gross Domestic Product as its usual income/standard of living corollary. Both numbers are rounded (along with Total Debt) to the 1 millions position for calculations purposes.

Economic Reset Button:
Now that we've pulled our data, lets redistribute some wealth. Let's start with the fun stuff; the cash!

M2$S/USPop = $9,435,272,000,000/312,471,569 = $30,195.62 per person.
M2$S/USH = $9,435,272,000,000/82,384,689 = $114,527.00 per household.

Now, with these to simple equations (which BTW, are effective corollaries for individual and household GROSS worth), we have already determined our own inequality. Households are defined and determined from Census data; and as most know, my household consists of only myself...do I get a check for $30,195.62 or do I get a check for $114,527.00? Meanwhile, a household with 4 or more persons; presumably some of them under the age of 18, and thus not legally adults, meaning the "head of household" could feasibly end up with custodial custody of $30k*number of persons within the household.

Now, if we're going to socialize our assets, we must also socialize our liabilities. After all, we're all in this together.

USTD/USPop =$54,562,973,000,000/312,471,569 = $174,617.40 debt per person
USTD/USH = $54,562,973,000,000/82,384,689 = $662,295.07 debt per household

Wow, this shouldn't surprise me (since I did a whole series on the major debt problem in this country on the macro level, but I had NO idea that there was such a discrepancy at the microlevel). Again, these calculations are corollaries for per capita averages; meaning if your personal/household numbers are BELOW the above, congratulations, you're better than average. 

So we now have our new GROSS worth per person/household, and our debt per person/household;  lets calculate our new NET worth (Gross worth - debts).

M2/Capita - Debt/Capita = $30,195.62 - $174,617.40 =  -$144,421.78 per capita net worth.
M2/Household - Debt/household = $114,527.00 - $662,295.07 = -$547,768.07

Doing the math this way, are you better off? Lets run the checklist:

Who Loses in our Robin Hood Game?
As an individual, is your gross worth more than $30,195.62? 
Is your household gross worth more than $114,527.00?
As an individual, is your debt LESS than $174,617.40?
Is your household debt LESS than $662,295.07? (this number still blows my mind)

And finally...

Is your personal net worth more than -$144,421.78 (BTW, if you have a job and a car, it probably is)
Is your household net worth more than -$547,768.07 (if you own the computer you are reading this blog on, it is essentially mathematically impossible for you, your household, and your entire EXTENDED FAMILY to have a net worth of NEGATIVE A HALF MILLION DOLLARS COMBINED!) 

But wait, there's more!
Notice the mathematics above only considers fixed assets; we're not considering income. So let's do that really quickly.

USGDP/Capita = $14,979,449,000,000//312,471,569 = $47,938.60 per person
USGDP/Household = $14,979,449,000,000/82,384,689 = $181,823.21 per household.

Now, this is more than likely where movements like Occupy Wall St, gain their steam and following; because I know several people who live in households not earning 181k, and several individuals not earning 48k. It's that evil 1% who is skewing the data upwards; real people don't make that much money. So lets reconsider what effects our redistribution of wealth with have on the income situation in America:

USGDP*/Capita = $0/312,471,569 = $0.00 per person
USGDP*/household = *0/312,471,569 = $0.00 per person.

Some of you out there are surely screaming loudly at your monitors at my calculations above. Allow me to enlighten you. Producers need resources to produce goods to bring to market. However, we have literally just reallocated every cash equivalent resource in America; this means that the producers will only be able to sell the goods they currently hold in inventory; and hopefully they can earn enough from those sales to meet their payroll at the end of the week to keep the employees producing the NEXT batch of inventory to sell so they can meet another payroll; and so on and so forth.

The Tank Says This...
So let's consider what "Occupy Wall St" is actually clamoring for. Stealing from any one person who happens to have more than 30,000 in the bank or family with 115,000 in nominal terms; burdening EVERYONE with numbers that ensure every single person will get slapped with 176,000 in individual debt and over a HALF OF A MILLION dollars in household debt. This of course, by definition means that the net worth of every person/household in America will be decimated, but not to worry because every American company will have to shut down because they have no cash to pay their workers with. Sure everyone will essentially be bankrupt, but at least the crushing grip of poverty is "equal"

I propose this. Our founding fathers boldly declared that "All men are created equal". That statement means only one thing to me; we all come into the world cold, naked and screaming; after that what we do with it is up to us. Rather than standing out on the sidewalk holding a sign and tweeting all day, invest in yourself, go to trade school; develop a skill. If you lack the skill set to be a productive member of society in the year of our Lord 2011; then that is unfortunate; but the law of the jungle has always been to weed out the weak; and the day is fast approaching when you chomp down entirely too hard on the hand that feeds you; and the response is going to be for that hand to make a fist...then for you it's all downhill from there. You'll have a choice to make, evolve or perish.

Because after all, life isn't fair.

The Blog every American who thinks Elizabeth Warren speaks to (or better yet, FOR) them needs to see..

FULL DISCLOSURE: As many who know me are aware, I lean largely conservative in my political ideology; however I have long since placed my politics behind my ability to think, to reason, and most of all to do basic mathematics. If the sentiments I express here echo those of someone else in the pundit sphere (Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Savage etc.) It's sheer coincidence. I am many things; but I do not blindly follow zealotry; nor do I plagiarize for that matter. Anyway, on to the blog.

If you have a Facebook account, you've more than likely seen someone link to a picture from left wing political website www.moveon.org that details "The Elizabeth Warren Quote Every American Needs to See." The quote itself follows below:

"There's nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

I copied and pasted because I really didn't feel like giving moveon.org any more hits than were necessary, but if anyone wants to double check me and verify my transcription, be my guest. It's copied verbatim from here.

Most of the people I've seen linking to this quotation seem to be in support of it. After all, what isn't to support. The greedy, evil factory owner making millions of profits off the sweat of the brow and the back of the overworked, underpaid proletariat of Karl Marx. It's a good story; which sadly is ruined by Mrs. Warren's completely ineffective word choice, sentence structure; ideology; and of course, those silly little things called FACTS that always ruin good stories.

Because it would be far too cumbersome and probably devolve into gibberish to respond to the entire statement at once; let's break it down into pieces and go from there.

"There's nobody on this country who got rich on his own."
This of course, is a true statement, if in no other sense but the literal one. It's quite the safe assumption that (insert rich person here) was  brought into this world by way of his mother who copulated with his father, and of course the birth was performed by a doctor and a medical staff; so that's at least 3 or more people that already the rich person is aided by; never mind a life long journey from crapping in a diaper and napping to becoming a titan of industry assisted by professors; friends, family, business partners, whatever. It is literally impossible to do anything in this world with out the assistance of one other person; because frankly, you come into this world indebted to at least 3 people. So the appropriate response to this statement is "Yeah, so what?"

"Nobody."

Don't sentences need to be at least two words long? A noun and a verb. Granted I don't have a law degree from Rutgers; but I do remember 3rd grade English.

"You built a factory out there - Good for you."

Actually, good for everybody. The factory is presumably going to make things right? In order to make things we need to purchase raw materials and equipment from distributors so that's good for them. We need to hire skilled labor to transform those raw materials into said final product so we can sell it; so it's good for the new employees' family who were living on the breadline yesterday. We're going to sell our product to someone right? That's good for either the merchants who sell our goods AND the general public at large who now has another product choice in an open marketplace. More choices generally means higher elasticity; higher elasticity means LOWER PRICES. In the grand scheme of things, the owner of the factory is actually the guy who gets hurt the most in the short run; but we'll come back to that later.

"But I want to be clear."

Sounds like a plan to me Beth; I'm assuming what follows will be very basic, simple premises that will not at all be contradictory or confusing. Let's see what you got.

"You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for."

I'm more than half way through my second year of business administration studies and I've studied the different forms businesses can be formed under many, MANY times at this point; I completely missed the type of business that not only was completely exempt from state and local taxes; but also granted the FOUNDER of the company the same exemption on a personal level.

Roads are considered a common good. They are non-exclusive and rival. This means that essentially an entity cannot provide them to one without providing them to many; but as anyone who has sat in rush hour traffic in a major metro will tell you, the more people that use them, the less surplus each individual has in terms of their usage. To put it another way, I enjoy using the roads more when it's wide open and I can do 80 miles an hour with nobody within a half mile of either bumper than I do sitting at a dead stop for half hour boxed in by cars on every side of me. Though my usage of the good can be affected; my costs are not. . . .regardless of whether or not I build a factory.

"You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate."
Oh, you want to recognize that fact now do you? You are acknowledging that my factory does in fact create those jobs that you love to harp and screech about because you think the world owes you a living? Okay, just checking.

The argument in general remains the same; I'm still not sure how opening my factory means I'm not paying my state and local taxes that go to pay for these schools. However, I am more than a little curious what makes you think that Education should be a common good in this country anyway.

By definition; "education" is a private transaction. Think of it this way; you want to learn karate, the piano, salsa dancing, etc; you enroll in a class, you pay the instructor, and you have gained the skills. Very simple, very basic, very PRIVATE transaction. Education is of course in a free market, a private good in that I can provide the service/have it provided to me (exclusive) and rival in that the quality of education I'm going to receive has correlation to the amount of persons I am sharing the good with; meaning my use of the good effects someone else's use in another way. Given that you work at Harvard (a private school), you should certainly not need me to explain this to you.

The fact that our employees not only WANT, but given our economy now; we NEED skilled labor is the major reason we've transformed education from a private good to a common one. The simple fact of the matter is that there is a massive correlation between the education level of our workforce and the performance of our economy; that correlation is only growing as the competitive advantages grow for China, Japan, India and all the other countries we have make our cheap crap while we're busy building Space Shuttles, Airplanes and providing services to the rest of the world. Those workers need we hired not only went to school, they performed, went further than they had to, developed a skill set, and continued performing AFTER they were hired. However, without my factory here to hire them; they would just be very educated people still living in log cabins and foraging for food in the wilderness.

"You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for."
Again with the us vs them. You know Beth, a more cynical person would think that you were subtly hinting that because I decided to create a business that I cease being a private citizen of the state and town I live in. Of course, this is rubbish; I'm still paying their salaries (and in some cases, I'm doing so voluntarily) as both services could be considered private goods under the right circumstances. If you don't believe me, pick out any Bond movie at random and consider the amount of evil henchmen surrounding the villain at all times. As for the fire department; there literally is nothing stopping them from ignoring the alarm; or even better yet, driving to the fire in question, and watching it burn. What I'm getting at Beth is that this statement is absolutely irrelevant rubbish and you know it.

"You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory..."
Yeah; it's called an alarm system at least and a completely competent security force at most. The only people I'm worried about seizing anything from my factory are the government who are hell bent on making it impossible to conduct business in a profitable manor; if for no reason then I get a lecture from some Harvard dingbat lawyer who wants to make sure every American person gives me a guilt trip for having the audacity to think that I should be entitled to see a return on my investment of time, resources and risk; because we all know that if *I* should see a profit, that makes me a whole other kind of evil. . .

"Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless!"
I told you earlier, my factory didn't have to be "turned into something terrific" it just had to meet its intended purpose. The "great idea" is not a product of the factory, the factory is a product of the idea. If I create a factory to produce tuna fish flavored gummy bears; I'm probably not going to be in business very long. My responsibility as an entrepreneur is to create, develop and bring to market something that people want and need enough that they will pay for me to continue making it. That would be how an economy WORKS. People are willing to pay Y for good X; I need to be able to MAKE AND SELL Y for some number greater than X and less than or equal to Y. If I can do that, I can stay in business. Not a real difficult idea. And don't get me wrong, as much as I love God and appreciate the many blessings he bestows upon us all daily; a good idea and sound business plans can succeed in spite of him (remember, it's data kids, not ideology).

"Keep a big hunk of it." 
Thanks, I appreciate you letting me keep a bunch of my earnings after I'm the one who came up with the idea for the product. The one who obtained, budgeted and utilized the resources in an efficient and effective manner. The one built the team around me (after all, nobody gets rich alone, remember) who implemented and perfected this plan. Finally, I especially thank you for letting me keep a "big hunk" of my earnings because I'm the one who takes all the RISK!

If I'm a small entrepreneur and my idea tanks; I still owe the bank for my start up loan. I still owe rent to the landlord for my office for the terms of my lease. I still have to make payments on my equipment that I used. If starting a business were as easy as you make it out to be Mrs. Warren; then everyone would send in an application, file their DBA tomorrow and just wait for the checks to roll in, and based on the current unemployment numbers, that's NOT how it is. So again, thank you so much for giving me permission to keep a big hunk of my money that I earned; now kindly feel free to kiss my ass.

"But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
I'm curious as to why the quote cuts off here, because frankly I really want to see what her ideas for "paying forward" include. Whatever they are, they seem to be inferred that the societal positives of creating unemployment and lowering prices on a good/service that (by definition) people want and need. It also has to be something in addition to the LONG RUN cumulative benefits that come from the free market. . .

Suppose in my factory I hire a machinist who was previously working as a part-time fry cook at McDonald's. My full time position doubles his workload and quadruples his pay. Now because he was skilled labor who has left an underemployment position to one that is commensurate with his skill level; he has more income to spend and save in his personal budget. Because he was diligent with his budgeting and savings; his son goes to Georgia Tech instead of Pellisippi State and earns his masters degree in engineering; then HE opens his own factory; meaning the process continues.

The Tank Says This:

Like most others who share her world view; Mrs. Warren is more than content to espouse class warfare and jealousy than to face the simple fact that we all make choices in our lives and that the greatest correlation in the history of statistics is the one between risk and reward. The one major criteria in the fry cook example above is that he has to have the appropriate skills to take the machinists job in the first place. This means he took RISK in educating himself in a skill that might someday not be marketable. This means *I* took a RISK (in addition to all the others listed above) in hiring him even with the skill set, because how do I know his skills are still applicable; or he's not become resentful or turned to drugs and alcohol? If he works out, great! If not, I risk ruining my product, or creating a poor work environment on my production floor. If it works out, we both win; if it doesn't we both lose.

So for all of her bile, venom, and (in this case, LITERAL) "us vs them" propaganda; there is actually more teamwork in the workplace than there is in this mindset. The next time you cash your paycheck; remember exactly what you did to EARN it. It's not charity, your employer isn't giving it to you because of some "social contract" they are giving it to you because you traded your time and your skill set for an agreed upon amount. If this makes you mad; then don't be mad at the bosses who are providing you with a way to earn a living and put food on the table; be mad at yourself; then take action to do something about it so you can help yourself, and really pay it forward by helping everyone else too.

The Debt Ceiling: Life at the Intersection of Metaphors and Mathematics (The Aftermath)

Far and away, the question I get asked about the downgrade is what does it mean for us in real terms. Like everything else in economics; it requires some explanation and will get you at the end of the day to the trademark economist answer of "it depends."

In Part Two of this series; we broke down the budget in terms of what it would be like if the government were a single household unit living off tax revenue as income and spending money through budgeted expenditures. Because we were spending more than we were collecting in tax revenue; the difference was made up by borrowing. Now, in the aftermath of the downgrade is where it's important to know exactly how we "borrow" money.

Unlike you and I, countries and businesses don't REALLY borrow from each other on handshakes and promises to pick up the first round next time; there has to be a paper trail. As such; federal governments and other business entities issue bonds to account for how much they owe. As some of you may remember from 6th grade Civics class; anyone can buy a bond (you, me, the shady guy that hangs out in your bushes while you shower, and of course, other countries). So, when we say that "China loaned us $100,000 last week"; that means they bought $100,000 of our bonds. Now, for their $100,000 in cash we receive today; they receive some amount that is based on a ratio of time and interest defined in the terms outlined at the time of purchase.

For example. Let's say the above Chinese $100,000 loan is comprised of the purchase entirely in 10-year treasury bonds. The current rate (as of this writing) for that instrument is 2.565%. Therefore, the Chinese can exchange those bonds for $125,650 on August 7, 2021. However, the major distinction between a stock and a bond is that the Chinese can also redeem their bonds for the actual accrued value at anytime before the maturity date. Unlike stocks, Bonds have no risk of loss of principle. If the Chinese wanted to do so; they could buy the bonds today and redeem them tomorrow to earn a whopping $7.26 on their investment; but they'll never LOSE money on the deal (so long as the issuer of the bond remains in existence and doesn't welch on the debt.) This is why bonds are considered a "safe" investment tool.

Now, also like corporations; governments credit worthiness isn't really determined by cash-flow and budgeting issues (at least, not directly). As anybody who has taken a survey level accounting course will tell you; it's more about your general business viability (are you selling a product that people want to buy and doing so in a way that you are profitable long term) that determines if you are a good credit risk or not. Much like Experian, Equifax, and Transunion maintain and evaluate the credit worthiness of private individuals for lenders to determine amounts and rates for mortgages, auto loans, and credit card payments; governments and businesses are monitored and evaluated by Moody's, Fitch and (the folks of the hour) Standard and Poor's (S&P)

Let's consider our previous example:


We've discussed in depth HOW the debt issue got so out of hand so quickly; what we've not really touched on is WHY it was able to happen. Our hypothetical private individual used to symbolize the US was clearly outspending his means; but we never really touched on how they got in that mess in the first place. Imagine if you will that there someone out there in the world who is so credit worthy that lender's from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine would send them pre-activated, ready to use unlimited lines of credit on a near daily basis. This man had a good history of paying his bills on time and in fact, lived in the nicest house in the neighborhood. The neighbors who like him, love him, but those who don't; despise his decadent arrogance (but they don't count, because the rest of the neighborhood doesn't care much about them anyway). Anyway; the long and short of the story is that this man has never had a problem securing credit when he needs it; and never really had a problem paying what he owes; because of these two things, he's really stopped keeping a budget all together and is just kind of "winging it" figuring that any problems would work themselves out in time. This cycle went on in perpetuity. . . until it didn't anymore. Things started to go bad for this man; and rather than step back, get serious about getting his financial house in order; he doubled down on borrowing to try and stimulate his household budget. Finally, after about 3 years of this, one of the three credit bureaus dropped his credit score from 850 to 823. (There are 20 levels on the S&P rating system, for those wondering where that number came from). After this happens; as you can imagine; the pre-approved card offers STILL rolled in on a daily basis. However, the man now was puzzled to see that he could no longer just swipe the card and start spending; he had to call and activate it. Even more confusing was the interest rates he was having to pay to use the credit lines. Instead of 2-3% the rates were now 4.5% - 6% (side note, these numbers are completely made up; but I assume in the ball park for what a lender would charge a super-prime credit score individual). In short; the man had just as many people willing to lend him money; but he was having to jump through a few more hoops (and pay a LOT more money) to do it.

Are you starting to get it?
So just like our hypothetical man above; the United States has had one of the three credit monitoring services (called rating services in the treasury world) ding our score. By their completely arbitrary standards and algorithms, they have determined that our financial situation is not as good now as it was the last time they reviewed it; and therefore they are reporting to the World at large that IN THEIR OPINION, they believe that our treasury bonds are more risky now than they were previously. This is important because the whole reason to buy bonds over stocks is to purchase that security against default. With greater RISK of loss, a greater REWARD (called a RETURN in the financial world) is expected.

As such, investors (who tend to have a crazy tendency to base their evaluations in data rather than the promises of politics); are going to expect to be compensated at a higher rate for the money they are parting with today. At a AAA level, meaning the safest haven possible; you can get away with a 2.565% interest rate in a global economic trough; however now that the instrument is slightly less secure; I'll need to be compensated a a higher rate to be motivated to purchase the instrument. What this boils down to for the United States Federal Government at the end of the day is that it plain and simple is going to cost them more to use that increase in the debt ceiling they worked so hard to get. After all; with out it, we ran the risk of being downgraded. . .

(end of Part 4)

 (Author's Note: I really was planning for part 4 to be the end of the series; just like I planned for part 3 to be the end of it before that, but this issue is obviously so timely and relevant for everyone right now who I assume cares enough about these matters to read this blog; so plans change. However, I promise that Part 5 WILL wrap this series up and we'll move on to other matters. I have a good 5-7 blogs I want to write that have been percolating for a while now, and I also know exactly how I want the conclusion to this series to end. My hope is to post it Wednesday or Thursday of this week and then we'll move forward. Thank you all for your support in this endeavor. As passionate as I am about these topics, writing 2500 words is a monstrous investment in time and energy; so your feedback and your spreading the word makes it all worth it. I appreciate it and I appreciate you all. . . Tank)