I was going to flee the capital late yesterday, after the Admiral’s retirement. It was great to be part of it. Norm racked up a series of “firsts” in his 31-year career, which he enumerated. He was the first African American to be selected for a host of key Naval Intelligence jobs- Detailer, Number Fleet Intelligence Officer, front office job for the DNI, and ultimately the first officer of color to make Flag rank.
It was a career well-served, and an honor to be part of the celebration. Naturally, his retirement comes on the eve of Mr. Obama’s second inauguration, which will take place on the holiday dedicated to the greatest African American, Doctor Martin Luther King.
By the time all the words had been said it was nearly rush hour, and I-66 would be a parking lot, with dusk coming before I could get safely away. So I caught up on the office mail and watched the last two episodes of a marvelous Masterpiece Theater mini-series called “Any Human Heart.”
William Boyd wrote the book and the screenplay, and the account of an old man and the women in his life across the last century was tender and funny and appalling by turn. Highly recommended, and you can stream it off Netflix. Then I turned in, ignoring the local news.
It is a hard thing when your local reporting is also National Narrative, so it is harder to tune out.
I did hear enough to make me want to get away. There will be something north of half a million people coming to town to celebrate the events which begin today, which is why I am getting as far away from the capital as I can. Or at least as far as Refuge Farm, anyway.
I will do my day of service down there. Scrolling through the headlines this morning, I saw the Continuing Crisis has new highlights:
“Civilian hiring freeze looms at Fort Meade, Naval Academy
Pentagon orders halt on hiring, plus plan for 30 percent cut in spending.”
It is a quiet Saturday morning otherwise, with the cold gathered close to the vest and the skies a deep and undisturbed blue. It had been a weird week and the headlines reinforced it. All the weeks of this New Year have been strange. The Fiscal Quadrafecta needs servicing: late delivery of the President’s Budget, Sequestration, the Budget Ceiling and the Continuing Resolution all come to a head starting in February.
The Republicans of the GOP-dominated House are coming out of their pre-inaugural caucus down in Williamsburg, apparently determined to permit the Budget Deficit Ceiling to be raised. In exchange for not trifling with the Full Faith and Credit of the United States, apparently a little poison-pill will be inserted into the authorization, which is that the Senators will not get paid unless and until they pass a budget.
It has been three years since the Senior Chamber did their job on that front, which is another of those amazing things that provides the surreal backdrop to the crisis. The authorization, if it happens, will only last for a limited amount of time- three months or so. Apparently the goal is to keep the Administration’s spending on the front burner through this entire two-year period of Congressional service.
We are starting to get this European thing down pretty well by now.
Not passing a budget has its upsides, since things just lurch along without debate about the numbers. Even so, the deficits have mutated into something quite extraordinary. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman tells me not to worry about it, not that there is anything I can do about it, but the current crisis has the government cancelling conferences left and right, and trying to deal with a prospective 30% cut to the budget at the end of the year.
That accounts for the generalized angst in and out of government about the uncertainty. Not a good place to be.
(Gold bullion getting ready to travel. Photo AFP.)
And there is other strange stuff going on. I don’t know if you saw the note about the German Central Bank calling home nearly 700 tons of gold bullion it owns, which is currently stored in vaults in New York and Paris.
As you know, the usual practice of central banks is to simply move the gold around from cage to cage in a secure area and avoid exposing the precious metal to the vagaries of predation. For some reason now the Deutschers feel the need to do so now. Wonder why?
Could it be that they are skittish about whether the Yanks or the Frogs really have it? Do they think that things are approaching a brink in which it is better to have your gold under your own mattress?
The venerable BBC said it this way:
“Germany’s central bank is to bring back almost 700 tonnes of gold reserves it keeps in New York and Paris. By 2020, half of its gold bars will be in its vaults, the Bundesbank said. It currently keeps less than a third at home. The bars were originally taken out of Germany as a precaution against an invasion from the Soviet Union.”
Another reminder of how the world has changed. I am glad I have Russians so close down on the farm. It is sort of comforting. Plus, I always find it interesting to see what the “smart money” is doing. I wish I had the means to do something smart. I presume that all savings and stocks are vulnerable to the demons of inflation, and I cannot imagine that our current folly will not bring it upon us.
A colleague said he was going to cash out his 401k and buy real property, with the assumption that it would still be there, even if the currency goes to hell.
“Not liquid,” I said.
He shrugged. “At least it is there,” he said. “Beyond that I don’t know what to do. It is grasping at straws, since the smart money has already migrated to wherever it is that smart money goes before the rest of us chumps are given a clue.
Considering we are all in the same leaky boat, maybe it is time to pull on the oars and get back closer to shore. Doctor King would appreciate the effort. A day of service, working together, you know?
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com