Scattershots – 6may17 (updated 8may17)

George Rebane

CA’s coming RMJ market.  As has long been proclaimed here, California’s recreational marijuana market will be dominated by the big guys.  And the remaining question is whether it will be oligopolized by the big guys, or will there also be room for the small (‘mom& pop’) operators under the RMJ laws Sacramento is now considering.  Unions have always thrived in autocratic environments, be they controlled by the government or mobster guns.  This explains the current lobbying by the Teamsters to create a highly structured, limited, and unionized process in California for producing, distributing, and retailing RMJ.

The Teamsters want to drive out the small guys and dominate the labor and legislative components of the big guys. This will increase the barriers to entry for the small growers while enabling a structured process that is easier to monitor and ‘manage’ by both law enforcement and unions, hence the cops are backing the three-tiered approach.

But the progressives, including their ACLU friends, have their undies tied in knot as they find themselves suddenly on the side of a free RMJ market with lots of growers, distributors, and retailers in all kinds of configurations providing consumers with lots of choices in quality and prices.  But controlling and skimming such a marketplace is hard with so many different players all over the place.  So look for the Teamsters and CA’s law enforcement to link arms and push through laws that rigidly structure the RMJ market.  This will guarantee the rise of large MJ warehouse grows, and some may even be built in Nevada County.  (more here)

Convention of States.  A reader gave me the heads up on Texas stepping up to the plate on joining the call to convene an Article 5 convention of states.  The real news here is the back story that the Left, formerly a big CoS backer, is now backing away from its support, alleging that the whole thing is a rightwing conspiracy to bring autocracy to the US.  The Right, led by people like our own Mark Meckler, has argued all along that the objective of the CoS is to return America to republicanism with a reigned in federal government and constitutionalism along the lines envisioned and bequeathed to us by the Founders.  Given that the Soros supported progressives are now abandoning their plans for conducting the CoS, I will have to reconsider my own support of this Article 5 initiative.  (more here and here)

‘Quantitative Investing – a crisis waiting to happen’, so argues MIT PhD economist Dr Richard Bookstaber in a new book The End of Theory.  Most readers know that all the big financial outfits have their skunkworks where a lot of securities data and trading algorithms are generated and studied.  And most of them also implement their algos in programmed trading schemes in which computers are the rapidly acting, final arbiters of placing trades.  Bookstaber says that such an approach, especially using algos to recommend stocks to retail traders, will ultimately derail the market through mass mania where everyone wants to concurrently either buy or sell – sorta like capsizing a boat by everyone rushing to the starboard or port rail.  However, the smart institutionals who trade algorithmically don’t publicize their algos and keep tuning them as market conditions change.

The watchword for the retail investor is not to be drawn in by ads promoting this or that new ‘AI-based’ sure-fire method for beating the markets and making a ton of money.  Two seconds of thought tells you that the last thing that anyone does, who discovers a working algo, is start selling it to the retail investors.  If it works, you trade your own account with it and keep it a big secret as long as it keeps working.  Only when it no longer makes money, a fate suffered eventually by all trading algos, it is then that you squeeze the last buck out of it by hawking it to the eager snuffies out there, using historical performance to imply that it is still working.  (more here)

‘Adulting’ is getting harder by the day.  That’s the new verb for encouraging young people to forsake adolescence and become responsible adults.  With the new millennials it’s even harder, since they have been educated under progressives’ tutelage from K-thru-college.  Today too many of formerly young adults are now old adolescents living with their parents, having no marketable job skills, and constantly demonstrating their ignorance and poor social skills to one and all.

Nebraska senator and former academic Ben Sasse describes this new generational phenomenon, and goes on to offer some suggestions for rescuing kids from a fate of rejecting adulthood in ‘How to Raise an American Adult’.  He cites “data from the Pew Research Center show(ing) that we crossed a historic threshold last year: ‘For the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household.’ Fully one-quarter of Americans between 25 and 29 live with a parent—compared with only 18% just over a decade ago.”  The Left, including our local lackeys, deny all of this while accusing messengers of such news of practicing inter-generational hate.  Progressives, of course, must engage in this denial because these not yet adulted people form the core of their convincible and compliant constituents.

[8may17 update] We almost missed a most beautiful and breathtaking soiree today at the home of Ms Ann Wilder who is a major supporter of Music in the Mountains.  Arriving tired after a long pull from the coast yesterday afternoon, we thought of just kicking back and slowly unloading the RV today.  Well, two things intervened, one of them a definite surprise.  Jo Ann reminded me that we had committed to attend a special MIM luncheon that also featured the virtuoso artistry of Ms Natsuki Fukasawa, concert pianist extraordinaire in an intimate setting.  (we are pictured with her)  Ms Fukasawa is an International Steinway Artist and the featured artist in this year’s MIM SummerFest 2017 at our fairgrounds, where among other offerings she will play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 accompanied by the MIM Symphony Orchestra.  

After the wine and puu-puus, and before the food was served by Antonio’s Catering, we were enthralled by Ms Fukasawa at the keyboard with selections that started with an awesome tone poem by Liszt (that really did have ‘too many notes’) and ended with a concert arrangement of ‘Over the Rainbow’.  These framed a delightful lecture on how Rachmaninoff came to compose his second piano concerto - he had just come out of a critic induced artistic funk. And then she played selected piano parts from the concerto, one of which required us all to ‘sing’ the familiar main theme from the first movement that is denied the piano, but which actually dominates the ‘melody line’.  And it all happened in front of us on Ann Wilder’s beautifully restored world class concert Steinway of the legendary genre with a massive base register that makes you feel you're sitting in a high vaulted cathedral assaulted by a couple of hundred large diameter pipes.  I was privileged to sit with her during lunch and can testify that she is a genuine person with wide interests and a very impressive woman.

It was bunch of goddam bees that almost made us miss the lunch.  They had arrived during our absence and swarmed into a huge mass on one of our fruit trees near where we stage the trailer.  Let me just say that this foreboding mass measuring about 18 inches in length and 6-8 inches in diameter made naïfs like us not want to get too close.  So this morning we got in touch with an expert bee keeper who came over and told us a bit about such bees.  Now understand that we love bees and had said a little prayer for their arrival this spring to pollinate everything in sight.  Only we had not counted on the Good Lord’s sense of humor in supplying an ample supply of bees.  Long story short, the mass of bees was not a hive but only a huge swarm looking for a new hive to establish while avoiding the regulatory hurdles that Nevada County puts in the way of home builders.  The bee keeper put an open box as a temporary (decoy) hive into which he shook the mass of bees (demonstrating that in this stage of their search they are not “defensive”), and the rest in due course dutifully followed into the container that now contained their queen.  Tomorrow they will be relocated into a real hive to continue doing the necessary work in keeping California’s ag businesses in the black.

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

More than half of all young people moving back home to live in the basement? Helicopter Mom to the rescue. Boy, a libbie in the basement is what I call a whine cellar.

[Russ]

California’s Reactionary Housing Policy Burns Millennials
The Golden State’s soaring home prices—exacerbated by NIMBY zoning restrictions, development plans that prioritize “density,” and arbitrary environmental rules—are exacting a catastrophic social and economic toll on the rising generation of young people looking to start families and lay down roots. So argues a bracing recent report from Joel Kotkin’s Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University.

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/06/californias-reactionary-housing-policy-burns-millennials/

[jon smith]

Russ you sound like Yogi, "nobody goes there any more because its too crowded." Berra. There is value in California real estate for exactly the reasons you stated. Want to devalue your home? Be my guest and move to El Paso where sniggling zoning restrictions and environmental rules are unwelcome and 16 people can live in an apartment right next door to the asphalt plant, garbage dump and trailer park. No, I did not make that up. That precise scenario exists in El Paso and housing for some reason is quite affordable, but not so much in demand, as say, Nevada City or Lake Wildwood.

[Bill Tozer]

Choices choices.

https://heatst.com/life/the-impending-millennial-housing-crisis/?mod=sm_fb_post

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

Your not-tax-dollars at work.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/delta-paid-its-own-security-upgrade-and-solved-all-its-problems

[Account Deleted]

jon smith - did you read the article?
You make fun of other areas that have folks jammed into one building, but that is actually far more common in California. Notice that you admit that what you describe happens because folks CAN live that way. In California they HAVE to live that way. We just returned from a trip that included Santa Barbara. Our daughter and son in law lived there for years, but have been in Texas for over 10 years now. Their friends that still living in SB complain about how many families are stacked into one house meant for just one family, but because of the insane cost of housing, it's getting totally over crowded. Read about San Jose and the nearby areas where people pay huge amounts just to sleep in a closet. Pay attention, fool - the folks that are productive are leaving and the free loaders are moving in. There is a wider income gap in California than any other state and it's growing. In other words, by the lefts' own definition things are getting worse - economically - in California.
And jon smith thinks it's just dandy.

[Russ]

Why venture capital investors are betting big on marijuana,
by the Los Angeles Daily News' Marisa Kendall: "

Silicon Valley investors are known for pouring money into risky bets like flying cars and asteroid mining. Now, a handful are diving into one of the few industries that makes most of their peers squeamish - pot. As the marijuana industry soars, with New Frontier Data predicting legal pot sales will balloon to more than $24 billion by 2025, a handful of venture capitalists are climbing on board - albeit cautiously."

http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20170507/why-venture-capital-investors-are-betting-big-on-marijuana

[George Rebane]

re jons 836pm - Here we have another of many wonderful illustrations of the liberals' logic deficit (others may call it insanity). To understand this illustration please start with Russ Steele's 734am, then Mr smith's 836pm response, followed by Scott Obermuller's 1007pm spot on critique. According to Mr smith's liberal logic, the way to solve the housing problem and keep middle-class millennials in California is to increase housing demand by making housing development more expensive through ever more regulations and fees, which reduces the number of houses built, which raises existing house prices, which deprives the more people of homes and home ownership, which fosters stack&pack, which ... ??!! We most recently expanded on this calamity here -
http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2017/04/californias-cacophony-of-calamities.html

[Bonnie McGuire]

Scott May 8-10:07
You're so right. That's what I've been hearing from people leaving the Bay Area moving here. Too expensive there. Traffic is increasing here. Looking back many years I remember the flatlanders poking fun at us trying to keep our rural economy alive ...accusing us of (logging/whatever) for monetary gain to earn a living. I had to laugh, because I wondered what they did for a living. They were selling their over priced homes, and buying cheaper land here as an investment to resell at a profit. Monetary gain? At the expense of the local yokels. When some looked at their property tax on their new mansion they were shocked! Prop 13 eventually helped those unable to pay old timers to keep their homes despite the screams by progressives that California's gov was losing so much revenue. Ha! An old rural shack on a lot valued at $20,000 sold for $400,000 and was reinvested in a $10,000 rural parcel to build a house assessed for $350,000 was a pretty profitable property tax revenue increase for the government not responsible for power, water, sewage, roads or anything....other than the stroke of a pen tax on both properties. The lying, complaining socialist mentality keeps on going like the energizer bunny cuz it's hard to get rid of mental/political addictions until you understand personal choices have consequences when you vote...and eventually bites the addict in the butt.

[fish]

......and he's gone!

TRUMP FIRES FBI COMEY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_COMEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-05-09-17-47-00

[Walt]

I do believe jon, needs to try and build a home in Ca. not to mention Nevada co.
The number one cost is dealing with the regulations. Want a small taste? Get a building permit to do a small repair. Then see what other intrusions by city and county government "inspectors" that triggers. And nope, that not limited to the project at hand.

To those thinking about doing some driveway improvements,, stick to asphalt. Concrete raises property taxes. The county considers concrete permanent, and asphalt "removable".

This has been told to me by more than one in recent time.

[Paul Emery]

Fish

Statement from Senate Intel Chairman Burr on the Dismissal of FBI Director Comey

“I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey’s termination. I have found Director Comey to be a public servant of the highest order, and his dismissal further confuses an already difficult investigation by the Committee. In my interactions with the Director and with the Bureau under his leadership, he and the FBI have always been straightforward with our Committee. Director Comey has been more forthcoming with information than any FBI Director I can recall in my tenure on the congressional intelligence committees. His dismissal, I believe, is a loss for the Bureau and the nation.”

[Bill Tozer]

Burr has always been dumb as a bucket of rocks. Not a bad fellow, just he can't see a bus under his own nose. Oh, Trump will be slammed alright, but in the end there will be no there there. Everything the Potholes do blows up in their faces. Acme rental.

[fish]

Posted by: Paul Emery | 09 May 2017 at 07:03 PM

.....and I'm supposed to take what exactly from this sterling example of "Senator Speak"?

[Don Bessee]

Po' ol' PE needs to make his own case, the party line junk just is not making it anymore. ;-)

[Paul Emery]

Sure Don

Burr is not very important. He's only the Republican Chair of the Senate Intel Committee. His opinion has no importance.

Also the CNN news story on the Grand jury subpoenas issued in FBI's Russia investigation is fake news as well right Don?

This will be all over the news tomorrow.

[Todd Juvinall]

Three R's say something the left then tries to make out as the whole party. I watched Tucker tonight interviewing a democrat operative and prior spokesman for the DNC. Tucker asked him now that Trump has done your bidding after yu called for his dismissal are you in agreement. Of course the lout said no and it is all the timing. You cannot ever get the corrupt semocrats to admit their momma birthed them.

[Bill Tozer]

The Fakenews Alt-Left types be like "We have not seen any evidence, so we need an investigation to find some evidence."

Maxine is on the trail sniffing out the stank.

[Bill Tozer]

https://patriotpost.us/posts/48980

Diamond & Silk say "Comey ain't no homey." That is all I need to hear. Them fine ladies never steered us wrong. Case closed.

[Russ]

The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance

America's youth are in crisis. Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, they are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy.

Just published and available on Amazon in Kindle and Hardcover.

[Bill Tozer]

Re:"Adulting is getting harder by the day."

Isn't it any wonder with adults like this in power:

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343.55586.217926015008110/1085416601592376/?type=3&theater