It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so
obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken,
and we do not want to be the last. -Francois De La Rochefoucauld,
moralist (1613-1680)
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| Twisted Oak Winery! |
Hi Tarzan! How did you and Carlos The Jackal fare? Sure it was fun in spite of any disappointing results. No room for hardware anyway!
Chloe Alexis Dunn shared Aunt Leah's Independent Lifeskills Society's photo. Facebook
friends and family, loved ones all round, it is Tree Lot time and I
want well rather I BEG for your help!!! message me, text me, email me if
you are up for a shift or 5!!! THANK YOU!!
See you there. Conductore Whirligig will meet you at Ashby BART at 10 this morning Cheers and safe travels. Charlie P, See you at Ashby at 10am. W
Hello Darling! Trust all goes well! Forgot to mention that we enjoyed your antipasto the first night we were staying with Coffaros, outside Healdsburg, watching SF win. Delicioso indeed, so thanks again! We are off to Calaveras this morning, heading north, via Tahoe, on Wednesday to put us within easy commute to Portland on Thursday, if that still works for everyone. Dinner out, is on us, it goes without saying.
Trip has been a delight and Glasgow and I rode over Golden Gate yesterday. What fun. Incredible weather. Will be in touch once we leave Foothills and make our way north, via Tahoe, Bend, etc. Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!
Hi Lads! If we are late, Whirlygig, just put out your unwashed, fermenting squash gear at the flea market there. Need room for wine muleage! Cheers, Il Conduttore!
Hello Duhlink and Goils! How are you, Chloë managing without "your" car? Gorgeous weather here! Fondestos, Love and Cheers, Patrizzio/Dad! Very Difficultly!! I am not meant to not have wheels!!! xx I only had the car for the weekend. I'm now back to busing Corinne Thank goodness for CAR2GO!!one weekend too long in my mind :) xx
Hi Kids! Great to have people working on next major trip while I'm suffering in the the foothills of the Sierra Nevada! Had a grand day tasting in Murphy's after we arrived from Berkeley. Loads to tell about many of the changes to various wineries in this region. Delightful dinner at Teresa's this evening and loads of fun with Teresa, herself, granddaughter of original "Teresa". Plan to ride from Jackson to Plymouth tomorrow but driver of Titanium Green will be determined by who has worst overhang domani! Fondestos, Love and Cheers, Patirizzio!
Pics: Twisted Oak; Teresa's; salad; Teresa with lads. Hi Kids! Just a quick note to thank you both for your unstinting hospitality and generosity! Ate our bagged lunches in Farmington and they were fabuloso, Vinnie! No trouble with route so many thanks to Donna Florida!
Pat, we have to finish my story about Billie........He was the one who worked on my deck and be a great friend climbing up my 120 stairs most nights......Look forward to seeing you soon
I don’t think the cost is out of line, but let’s make sure we know what we’re getting for their service. As you noted, that there is an additional charge for an English speaking guide from Udaipur to Delhi, days 29 to 43. That begs the question, do we have a guide for the first 28 days? If the guides are optional, what are we paying Luxe tours for, other than arranging hotels, cars and airport transfers? Looking forward to more discussion, Peter
Hi Peter If you look at the second rates page it states that we have a English speaking guide in each city. The only thing I'm wondering if it is too much? We are on the move sometimes every day. The 4 days in Goa is the only real break. What do you think? We could ask for more time in some areas. I've looked at air fare and Cathay pacific goods through Hong Kong and looks like one of the shorter flights. C
"At 12:45 on March 15, 1913, the [Woodrow] Wilson Administration made history when it established what would become a convention of the Presidency. That Saturday afternoon, Tumulty ushered 125 members of the press corps into Wilson's office; and for the first time, a President held a White House press conference.
Wilson was hardly
the first President to talk to a journalist; indeed, Taft met
occasionally with newspapermen after hours and granted them a few
minutes of questions; and TR [Teddy Roosevelt] cherry-picked
members of his 'newspaper cabinet,' allowing them to transcribe what he
chose to dictate. To promote government transparency, Wilson announced
that he intended to schedule regular conferences at which any journalist
could ask whatever he wanted. "If nothing else, the exercise was a good publicity tool for Wilson. Few
could speak off the cuff with such ease, and he sometimes simply chose
not to answer a question.
Most of his responses -- terse and precise --
revealed nothing more than necessary, but
his witty interplay with the press set the tone for relations between
the press and future Presidents. 'As he went on talking, the big hit he
was making with the crowd became evident,' reported The New York Times
after the first gathering. 'There was
something so unaffected and honest about his way of talking ... that it
won everybody, despite the fact that many of the men there had come
prejudiced against him.' Between March and December 1913 alone, Wilson
appeared at sixty press conferences.
"At the second conference -- which moved to the much larger East Room --
Wilson took the press into his confidence and asked for its help. 'The
only way I can succeed is by not having my mind live in Washington,' he
said. 'My body has got to live there, but
my mind has got to live in the United States, or else I will fail.'
Wilson hoped the newspapermen would bring him a sense of the nation
beyond the city in which they worked, considering themselves importers
as much as exporters...."The Constitution states that the
President shall from time to time not only give to the Congress
information on the state of the Union but also 'recommend to their
Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;
he may, on extraordinary
Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them.' ...
"After John Adams left the
Presidency in 1801, Presidents virtually discontinued their visits to
the two legislative houses. Ostensibly to keep 'the President's Annual
Message to Congress' from becoming a throne speech
-- though possibly because he was not a good speaker -- Thomas Jefferson
messengered his texts to the legislature for a clerk to read, and that
practice became standard.
"The morning after his
election, Woodrow Wilson had contemplated that clause, thanks to a
journalist named Oliver P. Newman. In an off-the-record interview about
executive style, Newman had suggested that Wilson might
abandon the 112-year-old tradition and deliver important speeches in
person. ... Thinking it would emphasize the cruciality of all that he
wished to propose, Wilson asked the legislature to convene.
Reaction
from Capitol Hill was swift. Republicans, such as
William O. Bradley of Kentucky, cautioned him to remember the separation
of powers, saying, 'If Mr. Wilson comes to the Capitol to influence
legislation, he will be more foolish than the donkey that swam the river
to get a drink of water.' Several Democrats,
such as John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, denounced the notion as a
reversion to royalty. 'The practice instituted by Jefferson was more
American than the old pomposities and cavalcadings between the White
House and the Capitol,' Williams said. On April 8,
1913 -- for the first time since November 22, 1800, when John Adams
delivered his fourth annual message -- a President of the United States
rode the mile and a half from the White House to the Capitol for the
purpose of addressing a joint session of Congress.
"Wilson staged the appearance with predictable simplicity, arriving by
automobile with only a Secret Service guard. ... Just before one
o'clock, the President appeared in the chamber, escorted by members of
each house; and everybody rose and applauded. ...
"The President began by stating his primary reason for delivering this message in person, which was his long-held belief in humanizing institutions. He said he wanted them to know that the President of the United States 'is a person, not a mere department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with his own voice -- that he is a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a common service.' The audience applauded. ...
"The President began by stating his primary reason for delivering this message in person, which was his long-held belief in humanizing institutions. He said he wanted them to know that the President of the United States 'is a person, not a mere department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with his own voice -- that he is a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a common service.' The audience applauded. ...
"His speech lasted nine minutes. Amid applause, Wilson left the chamber.
"In the car with his wife on the way back to the White House, Wilson kept chuckling under his breath. When, at last, Ellen asked what he was laughing about, he said, 'Wouldn't Teddy [Roosevelt, a former president known for enjoying attention] have been glad to think of that? -- I put one over on Teddy and am totally happy.' "
"In the car with his wife on the way back to the White House, Wilson kept chuckling under his breath. When, at last, Ellen asked what he was laughing about, he said, 'Wouldn't Teddy [Roosevelt, a former president known for enjoying attention] have been glad to think of that? -- I put one over on Teddy and am totally happy.' "
The Sages: Warren Buffett, George Soros, Paul Volcker, and the Maelstrom of Markets, Charles R. Morris, PublicAffairs, 2009. "U.S. Presidents have had a tendency to pressure the
Federal Reserve
into keeping interest rates low, and Federal Reserve chairmen are often
predisposed to please. But deferring needed rate increases and imposing
price controls eventually creates its own undesired consequence:
"Maintaining the gold value
of the dollar [by increasing interest rates] conflicted with the Kennedy
growth imperative in 1962, although it was finessed by the foreign
security tax ploy. Starting about 1965, Lyndon
Johnson started running big budget deficits to finance the war in
Vietnam and his domestic program [and] the floods of new money were
already generating inflationary pressures...."And once again, the
prescribed medicine-raise interest rates and reduce borrowing-was not on
the table, for it conflicted with Richard Nixon's desire to win a
second presidential term.
"The first two years of the
Nixon administration were very difficult economic sailing, to the point
where the administration was seriously worried about the 1972 election.
During the five years of Johnson's presidency,
despite the uptick in inflation, the real, or inflation-adjusted, annual
rate of growth exceeded 5 percent. But in 1970, growth plunged to near
zero, while inflation was scraping 6 percent -- dreadful numbers for a
campaign launch. There was little room for
maneuver. The 1970 federal deficit was already as big as any Johnson had
run, so fiscal stimulation was likely to spill over into more
inflation. ...
"But few politicians had
Nixon's gift for the bold stroke. In August 1971 he helicoptered his
entire economics team to Camp David for a weekend that Herbert Stein, a
member of the Council of Economic Advisers, predicted
'could be the most important meeting in the history of economics' since
the New Deal. After the meeting, ... Nixon announced that he would cut
taxes, impose wage and price controls throughout the economy, impose a
tax surcharge on all imports, and rescind the
commitment to redeem dollars in gold. ...
"After
the final decisions had been taken, [Volcker] was charged with drafting
Nixon's and [Treasury Secretary John ] Connally's speeches announcing
the changes. His draft, he recalled, was 'a typical devaluation speech'
filled with the 'obligatory mea culpas.' None of it saw the light of
day. The Volcker draft was handed over to uber speechwriter William
Safire and emerged as a proclamation of 'a triumph and a fresh start.' "Politically, it was a
masterstroke. With price controls in place, Nixon and his Federal
Reserve chief Arthur Burns could gun up the money supply without
worrying about price inflation -- both the narrow and broad
measures of money jumped by more than 10 percent in 1971, at the time
the biggest increase ever. Economic growth obediently revived and was
back up over 5 percent by the 1972 election -- just what the political
doctors had ordered.
"Consumers were happy with
flat prices, while big business loved the tax breaks, the import
surcharges and the price controls. All in a single weekend. Nixon had
delivered them from union wage pressures, supplier price
hikes, and foreign competition. ...
"Although Nixon got his
landslide, the cracks in the economy were too big to hide. The 1971
wage-and-price '90-day freeze' as it was originally billed, lasted for
three years. Controls are always easier to put on than
to take off. The underlying inflation builds to a point of
explosiveness, and the inevitable thicket of rules offers profitable
little crevices for the lucky or the well-connected. Organized labor
stopped cooperating in 1974, but by then Nixon was deeply ensnared
in the coils of Watergate. Congress forced the end of all controls in
the spring, except for price controls on domestic oil. Removal of
controls triggered double-digit inflation, the first since the 1940s and
the country suffered a nasty recession in 1974 and
1975."
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