KEEPING YOUR SANITY THROUGH THE VIRTUE OF TRADE AND MONEY
If you’re thinking of money as simply stacks of printed paper, or figures on a ledger, you’re missing the tremendous virtue that your creativity, productivity, and investments make possible.
Money is a measure of value, and it allows us to exchange differing assessments of value between one another. Value is simply a way of saying that something matters to us – that we value it. When I exchange something I have that you value for something you have that I value, we’ve each gotten more of what matters to us than we had before.
This is a supremely moral and ethical good, as Dierdre McCloskey has shown in her fantastic trilogy, Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity, and Bourgeois Equality. Understanding this really helps keeping your sanity in today’s woke world.
FRIGHTENING
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – GUINNESS AT THE NORTH POLE
April 15, 1981 – this is the exact moment when I landed on the sea-ice at 90 North latitude, the North Pole, to set a Guinness World Record for “The Northernmost Parachute Jump.”
On a Wheeler Expedition to the top of the world, we landed our ski-equipped Twin Otter on a configuration of ice called an “old frozen-over lead” precisely at 90N. My clients got out, we took the fuel drums out, rear door off, took off again with me, the pilot and co-pilot. I had pilot Rocky Parsons go up to 8,000 feet for a mile of freefall, directed him to the spot – tiny black dots of our people on the ice – told him when to cut the engines, and I was out the door.
OMG what a rush, falling straight down on the very top of our planet, a world of ice below – meadows of rubble ice, rivers of open water called leads snaking through the ice, lakes of water called polynyas, pressure ridges of turquoise ice, terminal velocity, back flips, somersaults, fun in the sky. Altimeter shows 2,500 feet, time to go – pull out the hand deploy, see the canopy furl out in full, grab the hand toggles, spin around for more fun, line it up to come in next to everyone, stand-up landing, Guinness Book. Totally cool. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #5 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/22/22
This heartbreaking picture was taken on Wednesday (7/20) and has gone globally viral. Senselessly slaughtering civilians and children, the way Putin wages war, is colossally stupid. All it accomplishes is to make governments in Europe and the US more determined than ever to sufficiently arm Ukraine to kick the Russians out of their country.
Here’s a clear-cut example of how desperate Pooty’s Russkies are now. Meet:
CAPTAIN UKRAINE!!
On Tuesday (7/19), Yahoo News reported: Captain Ukraine? Russia Says It’s Losing to Army of Experimental Mutant Super Soldiers Created in Secret Biolabs. It’s Tucker Carlson meets Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee in the Kremlin. Leaders of Russia’s Parliament (the Duma) are actually claiming this publicly.
Back in the USA, there’s a YBD, Yuge Big Deal this week. You’re going to love this. It’s about Fauci and Zuckerberg getting what they deserve.
SKYE’S LINKS 07/21/22
Looks like General Milley committed high treason. TTPers are not surprised.
Grassley and Banks to Milley: ‘Honor Your Word’ and Stop Dodging Questions on Woodward Book Claims
Watch: As Mask Mandate Looms, LA Hospital Officials Mock COVID "Media Hype"
Jonathan Turley on the 'Crat's next plot against the Second Amendment:
Democrats' Second Amendment 'Syndrome' Plan: Plotting The Next Big Fight Over Gun Rights
THE WORLD’S BEST MOONSHINE
Santo Antão island, Cape Verde. The world’s best moonshine, which the islanders call grogue, is made here. There are ten islands comprising the country of Cape Verde, some 400 miles off the West African coast of Senegal in the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, Cape Verdeans have been making grogue but the folks like the fellow here on Santo Antão have perfected it.
You’ll find their stills out in the sugar cane fields, where they put the cane in to a press called a trapiche, then cook down the molasses in an old oil drum into a clear distilled rum that’s up to 140 proof or more. This fellow is pouring me a sample to taste in a coconut shell. You have to be really careful because it’s so smooth and silky it goes down like water – making it very easy to get quickly wasted.
If you like it – which of course you will – he’ll pour fresh grogue into an empty plastic liter water bottle and sell it to you for six bucks. People are always partying in Cape Verde, and why not with all this grogue. They don’t mix it with anything except some lime juice and an ice cube. Really fantastic. Come to Cape Verde and have great time yourself! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #171 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ELECTION HEROES ARE STOPPING DEMOCRAT VOTE FRAUD RIGHT NOW
The soul of phantom voter fraud is the occasional, non-committed voter. They show up at the last minute, delivering winning margins.
Actually, nobody shows up. Nor does anyone return an absentee ballot.
That magic comes from a wonderful Democrat customer service innovation, the Phantom Voter Concierge, who casts the non-committed voters' votes for them.
Let's go there. Let’s find out how it works – and how Voter Integrity Teams are now applying advanced computer technology to put an end to it.
CHINA’S ECONOMY WORSENS AS XI’S RULE FALTERS
The relentless cascade of bad economic news in China has not only cast doubt on the governance ability of the Xi Jinping leadership.
It has also called into question the long-term viability of the Chinese economic model, which stresses maintaining party-state control of the market and limiting international access to sensitive sectors such as finance.
Given supreme leader Xi’s Maoist-style and statist approach to the economy as well as his insistence on a “zero-tolerance” pandemic policy, confidence in China’s future among its neighbors and trading partners is tipped to drop even further.
Looking forward, there seems to be no easy way out for Xi. Here’s why.
A TREASURE OF CONNECTION IN SAMARKAND
When I read Joel Wade’s exceptional essay on The Treasures of Human Connection, with his example of a “mico-moment of connection” being a ”nice conversation we have with the checkout person at the grocery store,” this Uzbek lady came to mind.
She manages a store of pottery art – you can see how gorgeous it is – in the legendary Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. Welcoming me, she explained she was talking to her daughter on her cell phone. I bought something irresistibly pretty, but before I left, I asked if I could take her picture as I was taken by her warmth and friendliness. The picture you see captures that, especially in her eyes.
Samarkand is in Uzbekistan deep in the heart of Central Asia. It’s as remote and exotic as you can get from your local grocery store. Yet a micro-moment of human connection can occur in Samarkand just as it can in your hometown.
We travel around the globe to see world-famous sights and spectacular wonders, but so often it is the special people we meet – if only for a micro-moment – that make our journeys so memorable.
I’ve talked often about Central Asia in these Glimpses – from The Sultan Astronomer to Teenagers in Bukhara, from The Well of Job to The Pearls of Shing and Surrealism in Central Asia.
I won’t be again for some time – as the deadline for you joining me on my exploration of The Heart of Central Asia is nigh. Exploring Central Asia is one of the most extraordinary experiences our planet has to offer, and as I won’t be doing this again, it’s now or never to make it a part of your life. Don’t pass it by – carpe diem: The Heart of Central Asia – Sept 18-Oct 4, 2022. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #215 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WHY VOTERS WILL DELIVER DEMS A BUTT-KICKING IN NOVEMBER
I’ve been saying this from the start — 2022 is ours to lose. In less than 2 years of Joe Biden’s presidency and the Democrat Party’s takeover in Washington, we have only:
Rip-roaring inflation, empty shelves, mothers who can’t find baby formula, a dangerous invasion at our Southern border, drugs and criminals marching in everyday, escalating spending and debt, a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that cost 13 Americans their lives, radical indoctrination of our children in schools and rising crime.
Now we are 4 months away from the 2022 midterms, and Republicans have a message of hope for our country. We are on the right side of the issues, and we are pushing forward.
The American people are going to deliver a complete butt-kicking to the Democrats this November. The Red Wave will sweep the nation and here are just a few reasons why.