The Comments are Priceless!

Greetings Cappy Cappites across the fruited plain!

For some holiday cheer, I suggest reading the comments from Cafe Mom about worthless degrees!

Silly Rabbit, Worthless degrees are for kids!

It Would Be the Greatest Christmas EVER

Please bring back Firefly.

Please bring back Firefly.

Please bring back Firefly.

For those Cappy Cappites of the Capposphere that haven't seen it, I strongly recommend you watch the series Firefly.

Cpt. Malcolm Reynolds was actually fashioned after yours truly (and now wait for the roaring accusations of blasphemy)

Ripping on Poindexter

Heh heh. I don't think society will ever get rid of the trait of assailing, if not, killing anybody who steps outside of the box and tries to create something to help society.

ht

Also, a pretty good read from The Spearhead. I would only ad that society, through progressive regulations and attacks on success and profits, has effectively killed most young men's incentives to go out, work hard and create. Much more rewarding to move back in with their parents and play video games, because, "why should I go and try to cure cancer, let alone be a responsible father and husband?" This apathy I have not only witnessed in myself, but other men as well. It could be anecdotal, but I doubt it. Young men are becoming more apathetic to society's goals because the support structure there to cheer men on to go out and kick ass and take names that was around in the 1940's has been turned into a political and educational machine against them.

Though I salivate at the prospects of watching today's current political ideologists of feminism, socialism, diversity, and equal-outcome-at-all-costs advance society to something better than those "old patriarchical fogies" managed with Western Civilization.

From Our Canadian Man in the Field

I get a lot of e-mail from geologists and other folk employed in the mining/drilling sectors. Found this e-mail as I was cleaning up a bit, and decided like our SSMITF, I should share this with you:

Just wanted to say that your website is a great break in my day. I have to say that just about everything you say about people in my generation is true. I am a 27 year old petroleum geologist working in Alberta. The oil industry here has a major labor shortage in all sectors, that does not look like it is going to be getting better any time soon. If you have a bachelors degree in geology you can get a job in the field paying 150K a year for about 140 days work. If you have a MSC you can pick up right out of school a 120k a year job in the office with benefits and a healthy bonus structure along with loads of training and work place education. Engineering, accounting and finance jobs are all about the same in terms of pay and benefits etc. I am willing to be that students in University are not told by their counselors etc that these career paths even exist.

However the industry can not find enough qualified graduates to fill these roles. While in school, of about 15 of us in the department only about 3 work in the oil and gas industry. This is despite the oil companies offering internships paying 30$/hr, sending students all around the world on paid field trips. The attitude is that young people don't want to get into the industry having been told for years that working in Universities, for the government, or for environmental companies is a more noble way to contribute to society.

I am starting to run out of sympathy for people out of work in Canada and the USA when I see jobs advertised for unskilled labor in northern Alberta for 75-100k per year. It scares me to think what will happen when the 80% of the people of my generation realize how much wealth the motivated 20% has created for them selves, and decide to try and spread that wealth around.

Something for AARP to Ponder

If any of this is true (which it is), I fear for AARP members when they rely on the youth they brainwashed to take care of them when they're old. Methinks there will just be a lot of really cheap tent-city nursing homes if any at all.

Freedom Twenty-Five: A 21st-Century Man’s Guide To Life

Frost, as some of you know, is out gallivanting about, living the life every 20 something male should in Asian right now. However, for such a young fellow, he also managed to compile a book which is no small feat for the average 20 something American male.

I have yet to read it, and thus review it, but don't let that stop you from taking a look at it. It's available on

Kindle

or

Paperback

You may read reviews here.

I believe it is (much like my book) targeted towards youth to make it so their futures are easier than ours. It is a "game" themed book that, for all the writing and blogging in the manosphere, I'm not sure there are too many of.

Regardless, visit young Frost and if you need something to read at the airport, download the Kindle version.

The Poor Chillllldwreeeennnnn

Yet another reason why I don't care about the "chillllldrreeeennn" or baby mamas. They are so spoiled by a public sector father (financed by us of course) that this constitutes a crisis of some kind.

ht

Captain 5 Years Ahead of Fed Economists

From Aug of 2011.

From (originally) September of 2006. (if you don't believe me, look at when the charts end).

Ahhhh, if I only learned to kiss ass instead of kick ass, I could be employed as a government economist today.

Vintage X-Mas Cappy Cap

For those of you who don't have the greatest budget for this Christmas, consider the gift all guys want from other guys!

Nothing!

Give the Gift of Super-Awesome Economic Genius!

Dear Fellow Beloved Junior, Deputy, Aspiring, Official or Otherwise Economists,

Thank you very much for your purchases of my new book, not to mention many of you have just outright donated cash to the ole Captain. The Captain likes cash!

However, as I know, not everybody has the money to make donations or purchase my books. Not to mention, many of you either already know about the housing crisis or have already attended college and have no real interest in reading about it more. However, there is only one request I have of my readers and that would be to merely forward a link to a friend or another web site that might help boost my sales.

We have a lot in inventory at the Cappy Cap Store, just click on any one of the numerous side bar advertisements to grab the link and forward it to anybody you think might be receptive. About the only thing that isn't already linked in the side bars is the Kindle version of Worthless, which you can find here.

In the meantime, hopefully you or somebody will be able to read a little bit of the Super Awesome Economic Genius on their holiday travels and the Captain can keep you company as you sit in the airport waiting for your flight.

A Feminist Christmas

I was going to throw this in with the rest of the links, but then it dawned on me it deserves its own ridicule.

I link to the Spearhead and not the Youtube video, for the video does not deserve the hits. But you should read the article (short), but more importantly watch the video.

Honest to the Patron Saint's Name of Frick. Are feminists even capable of being happy? How sad do you have to be to go and take innocent little Christmas songs and purposely find something wrong with them? I know the strategy is to take innocent things, create or identify false "problems" with them, claim victim status, and then demand government funds for compensation, but geez, you just look like, well, a bunch of pissed off feminists.

Additionally, while the girl in the video claims there are some really "creepy" things in these Christmas songs, what's really creep is something that hearkens back from my parochial school days. At this veritable brainwash camp I attended in my youth, we would be allowed to listen to records. But the teachers were always, constantly and PURPOSELY trying to find things wrong with the lyrics so they could scold us for listening to the song. Half the time the lyrics were so intelligible, we just liked the beat and the music itself. But no, they said (just like Msssssss. Bahumbug did),

"But do you really listen to the lyrics and the hidden messages?"

As if to ply a guilt trip on you for daring to sing "Baby It's Cold Outside" and imply some kind of sin by association.

So to all you feminists who want to make everybody as miserable as you are during Christmas, perhaps this would be a better song:



Merry Christmas...that's if you're capable of it.

Update - seems the ratings and comments section of this video have been disabled. Probably because it didn't jive with the author's ideological desires of foisting misery and solitude upon all women. Apparently all the women who want real men and desire to be happy didn't like the video, not to mention, if any statistical evidence showed just how unpopular "feminism" is in the US, it would cost all those precious little feminists the rationale for their existence.

Don't worry girls, keep on crusading. A lonely, male-free nursing home, replete with cats and abusive government paid union socialist orderlies awaits you where you can convince yourself you didn't purposely shoot yourself in the foot by criminalizing what ironically could have been the best thing for you.

Oh, and merry CHRISTmas.

Linking Far and Away

You can just tell without even having to read the figures.

"Math is hard." Tough sh!t kid. Unemployment is harder. Learn the damn math.

Why I wish I had a "Baseball Bat of Enlightenment" when I hear naive 19 year old college students espouse socialism.

Schroeder had game because he ignored Lucy. Schultz knew this.

You enjoy your career, we'll enjoy watching you decline and fail at bringing up what are 100% guaran-freaking-teed to be screwed up kids.

Economics is a Worthless Degree

A lot of people ask me if I find economics to be a worthless degree and I say, "Yes, yes it is."

The discipline has been corrupted by Keynesians and professional bureaucrats as a means to rationalize wealth transfers and any private sector employment is minimal due to the private sector being about as dumb and intellectually crippled as the labor pool it pulls it's leaders from.

Thankfully I majored in finance so I have some modicum of accounting skill to fake like I know what I'm doing. Regardless, I would strongly advise AGAINST majoring or pursuing a career in economics because you will simply, once again, be giving Big Education academians your money to be:

1. Lied to
2. Taught nothing
3. With no tangible skill that any employer wants
4. Unless you already have an uncle in the Bulge Bracket or government who can land you a job

However, I do believe, like writing, it is a skill you should develop or learn on your own in that it will serve you better in other areas of your life. Not just because it's intellectually rewarding and stimulating, but studying reality-based economics (ie-Austrian) will help you understand where to invest, how society will evolve (or in our case collapse) and in general predict the economy much better than Krugmanites.

Please Lie to Me

I say "the numbers tell us" because I've become very sensitive to the impact this kind of statement has on people. When I warned about the impending bankruptcy of General Motors in 2006 and 2007, readers actually blamed me for the company's problems – as if my warnings to the public were the real problem, rather than GM's $400 billion in debt.

The claim was absurd. But the resentment my work engendered was real.

So please... before you read this issue, which makes several arresting claims about the future of our country... understand I am only writing about the facts as I find them today. I am only drawing conclusions based on the situation as it stands. I am not saying that these conditions can't improve. Or that they won't improve.

Foolish man, doesn't he know the way to get ahead is to tell the aging gray hairs what they want to hear?

Poindexter's Revenge

Mandatory listening for all 14 year old boys, as well as their grown up male counterparts.

So Wronwrey

Looks like some people aren't missing a meal in the DPNK.

"Booming" Housing Market

"Booming" which is like calling Roseanne Bar "hot."

I've updated the St. Louis Fed's chart to show that "booming" increase to 680,000 annualized units. You just can't miss the huge BOOM because it's so obvious, plus I made it red.



See the boom!? Do you see it?!! How can't you see it!!! It's SO OBVIOUS!

Not to mention it's all "multi-family" construction which means more renters and less owners!

Recovery, here we come!!!!

America is Running Out of Bubbles

It was 1997.

I was working for this DB investment "firm" in Chicago. They all were pursuing their CFA's and MBA's and they all graduated from some top notch Ivy League school or another.

We were sitting around and the topic of conversation came up about the valuation of the stock market at the time.

One Northwestern graduate said, "It should be trading at 10,000."

Another U of Chicago graduate said, "It should be trading where it is."

I said, "It should be trading at 7,000."

They all laughed at me and thought I was nuts. But since I went to a public school and had to put myself through college, I knew I was right. The DJIA should have been trading at 7,000. Not the 9,000 it was trading at, at that time, let alone the 11,000 the moron from Skokie said it should be trading at.

It would only be another short year before the Asian currency crisis took the DJIA back to the level it should have been trading at and proved all my DB ivy league contemporaries wrong.

Of course, my victory would be short lived. The reason why is that within another short year a new phenomenon hit the market. The "Dotcom craze!"

I was no computer engineering major, but I had a hard time trying to understand why the DJIA went up to 11,000 because we sold pet food online. I was told I was a fool and didn't understand the "complexities" with the internet and how B2B, B2C and C2C marketing worked. I was a moron for not seeing how this would result in a mere tripling of our GDP.

Again. I said it wouldn't last, the earnings weren't there, blabbity blah blah blah.

And sure enough, the DJIA dropped back to 7,500 when all those MIT and Ivy league graduates couldn't get it economically up and produce the GD profits required to rationalize their valuations.

You would think this time, the Ole Captain would be proven correct. That sanity had finally placed itself at the helm of the pscyhology of the market. But no, there was a new bubble.

The housing bubble.

I don't have to go into detail about the insanity that occurred there, because I already wrote the freaking book on it. But it was the same damn thing.

"Yea!!! Asset prices are increasing! Why???? Uh...umm....I don't know, but they are...YEA!!!!! Let's borrow more than we can afford out of it!!!! I want an SUV honey even though I have a degree in philosophy and work as a nanny!"

Of course nobody listened to my super awesome economic genius and, consequently, the economy went into it's worst recession since 1929 and ONCE AGAIN the DJIA DROPPED TO 7,000.

The solution, of course, advocated by our dear beloved leaders today is "education." Let's throw a trillion dollars a year into education. But, oh no. Not education where genuine economic production takes place like engineering or computers or physics. Oh, mercy me oh my no. No, let's all major in philosophy or education or sociology or whatever "hobby degree" the trillions of dollars the naive Chinese have lent us to piss away pursuing these worthless degrees.

And jee shucks whillikers howdy.

Where do you think the DJIA is going to end up this time?

I've been saying it for a long time. The DJIA - in short, the prevailing market price or numerical representation of the total economic productive capacity of the United States - should be at 7,000.

And what's great, what is supremely delicious, is that as far as I can tell, Americans have just plain ran out of bubbles to bail them out. How, oh how, are you going to keep that precious DJIA perpetually going upward so you can all afford to "magically" retire at 62?

Understand, my arrogance and bravado aside, I was genuinely the best damn finance and economics major at the U of MN. I put myself through college, I worked full time and went to school full time. I knew the 4 people who graduated with GPA's better than me, and they all had mommy and daddy paying their way and they took 5 years to graduate compared to my 3.5. They didn't even come close to me in terms of intelligence, let alone my intricate and intuitive understanding of economics, finance and accounting, let alone pure drive and determination.

So when every time it looked like FINALLY the economic realities of the global economy would come to roost and deliver a dose of reality to the US economy, and I would be proven right, NO, the Americans were always creative and resourceful in finding new bubbles to constantly bail them out.

First it was the booming 90's, felled by the Asian currency crisis.

Then it was Dotcom Mania, felled by DB Gen X'ers who never had any intention of making genuine economic production.

Then it was a housing bubble, felled by the ineptitude of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers to make their mortgage payments

only to sadly and futilely be bailed out by the (pfa!!!! You ready!??? You sitting down?? This is going to be hilarious!)

The education bubble as worthless Millineals (don't care how it's spelled) pursue their degrees in "Puppetry" and Sociology and whatever worthless touchy feel good crap the preceding generations told them to go and major in.

In short, for the past 2 decades, America has been relying on bubbles to hide the underlying deterioration (ie-read laziness) in its ability to produce genuine economic production. We rely on asset price increases to pay for our retirements, to boost consumer confidence, to boost consumer spending, all while producing nothing of economic value to rationalize these price increases, resulting in not just bubbles and trade deficits, but unfathomable peace-time debts and deficits.

So, I'm just curious, fellow Americans. What faux bubble are we going to pursue now to hopefully fake out the rest of the world that we are a serious country to give us favorable lending terms so we can continue to piss away our creditors' monies?

A "Green Bubble" like the highly successful Solyndra.

A "Grrrrrrrl Power Bubble" like all you girls with your masters in social work and elementary education? Yeah, that'll close the trade gap with China and bring us back to a booming economy.

The "Baby Boomer 401k Bubble." Oh, that's right, you all pissed away:

1. The money you inherited from the WWII generation
2. The little money you worked up during your presupposed "productive years"
and
3. The money you mortgaged from your children in the form of SS and Medicare.

I'm sure, with the WONDERFUL employment opportunities you've left future generations we'll be able to just keep on contributing to the stock market via our own 401k's plans to keep stock prices artificially high so you can slowly switch out of equities into bonds.

The sad truth is that America has run out of options.

There are going to be no more magic tricks. There is no asset class remaining that hasn't been artificially inflated. There is no government where "Barack and His Magical Keynesian Unicorns" that are going to come to your rescue.

The time is VERY NEAR where the harsh, mean, cold realities of economics are going to beat the ever living crap out of naive, idealistic, lazy, socialist people, and I am here watching with my cigar lit, my Rumpleminze poured, fully intending to savor every second of it. It's already happening.

I love watching Detroit collapse.

I love watching employers cut jobs in socialist states like California and Minnesota.

I love watching OWS protesters with degrees in "peace studies" bitch about not finding jobs.

I absolutely savor the increasing number of stories where the Baby Boomers are so woefully prepared for retirement they have to "GASP" WORK PAST 65!!!!!

All these morons have just plan ran out of scams and charades to postpone the inevitable. You all are relying upon that so precious DJIA to keep going up at the historic 12.8% it has since 1881. Your 401k plans, your 403b plans, your pensions, your retirements, your TIAA CREF's, your teacher unions' pension funds. All of it dependent on stock prices going up, while you so damn ignorantly want to punish and tax the "evil corporations."

No bubble can save you now.

No miracle can overcome your ignorance.

I'm just waiting, at the edge of my seat, to see which new cockamamie bubble you're going to concoct now to bail your pathetic asses out.

Please, humor me.

Because the only thing that will genuinely bail you out is going to be legitimate economic growth. Something no American has the patience or work ethic for.

I Solved the "Giggle Complex"

Men in the ballroom dance community will know what I'm talking about and will appreciate the great advancement I've just made.

The "Giggle Complex" is when you go to a table of girls at a dance hall, and in order to not seem like you're a stalker or targeting any one girl, you say,

"Would any of you like to dance?"

Without fail, what reliably ensues is giggling. This is then followed up by the different girls at the table pointing at each other,

"No, you dance with him."

giggglelgiglglegiggle

"No, YOU dance with him!"

giggleglgiggleigiggleggiel

"Tee hee, I don't know how to dance, you should dance with him!"

giggilgeiglggigglggilgglegiggle

You stand there like an idiot for about a solid minute that seems to last an eternity as they unknowingly mock you in front of many people (I however immediately do an about face once they giggling and pointing and "no you" BS begins, and have seen women continue pointing at each other not realizing I've left). If you have confidence, you actually take it in stride and perhaps even revel in the irony of how these girls are no doubt the ones complaining about where "all the good guys are," while there stands before them the salsa-dancing, motorcycle riding, fighter-pilot, surgeon, alphamale they all dream of having, but loathe the concept of dancing with.

Regardless, this presents a problem to men in the dance community, because while this strategy is still one of the best approaches to notch up some dances, it is draining, not terribly successful and is insulting.

Introduce a little Alphamaleness.

Was at the local dance club in town. Not a lot of dancers here, but there is a dance hall and it gets reasonably packed on the weekend. Fed up with the past 3 weekends of getting shot down and by none-too-pretty ladies I might add, my attitude was not a patient one. I saw a girl that was in shape, went up to her and her group of friends at the table and said,

"Hey, let's dance."

The giggling and pointing was about to start, and she said,

"You should dance with my friend she..."

I cut her off. I said,

"I didn't ask her to dance. I asked you to dance."

The initial giggling immediately stopped.

Their eyes went wide.

No childish finger pointing or mocking ensued.

She got up off of her seat, walked to the dance floor with me and danced. When I got back to the table, I pointed at the next one and said,

"You're next."

Ended up dancing with the whole table.

I officially believe this is the way now to approach all women when you are asking them to dance, especially when they're securely huddled within the "herd." You single the hottest one out, go right up to her, borderline tell her she's dancing with you, and before the cackling can begin you deliver the silver bullet,

"I didn't ask her to dance, I asked you to dance."

Has not failed me yet.

The only other method I've had that has been more successful is to bring a ringer in. This is where you bring a dance partner who is outstanding. You dance so everybody can see how good you are, essentially advertising to the women,

"Yes, I know how to dance. And yes, you too could be the center of attention just like this woman I'm dancing with now."

Whether they know how to dance or not, they won't care. They want to become that woman on the center of the floor and have all the attention of all the men in the joint.

Christmas Gifts for Teenagers

Well, you could always buy them some wisdom that will prove more helpful than college itself.

Or the cheaper Kindle version thereof.

And it will be a lot less likely they'll came back to live with their parents when they're 30 years old.