2023. The Second Branding

2023. The Second Branding

2023. The First Branding

2023. The First Branding

Lex Anteinternet: "How can you represent. . . "

Lex Anteinternet: "How can you represent. . . ":

"How can you represent. . . "

Elk Mountain.

Every lawyer has been asked that question at some point.  Usually it's "how can you represent somebody you know is guilty?"

Usually, amongst lawyers, it's regarded as kind of an eye rolling "oh how naive" type of question.  For lawyers who have a philosophical or introspective bent, and I'd submit that's a distance minority, they may have an answer that's based on, basically, defending a system that defends us all.  Maybe they have something even more sophisticated, such as something along the lines of St. Thomas More's statement in A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More : Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

That's about the best answer that there may be, and frankly the only one that applies to civil litigation.  We can console ourselves that in representing the interests of the potentially liable, we protect the interest of everyone.

But what about plaintiff's lawyers?

Frankly, the excuse is wearing thin.  

I.e., I don't believe it for a second.  It's all about cash.

And this is a real problem.

The question is what to do about it.

Well, frankly, the average person can't do much.  But you don't really have to accept it, either.

Shunning has a bad name in our culture.  Indeed, one English language European source states:

More specifically, shunning or ostracising is a form of abuse. It is discrimination and silent bullying. Unfortunately, often people who have been shunned also face other forms of abuse, ranging from death threats and physical assaults to murder.

And there's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, it was and is something that is often practiced to varying degrees in religious communities.  Indeed, up until the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, Catholic excommunications were of two types, vitandus and toleratus, with vitandus requiring the Faithful to cease all normal connections with the excommunicated.  It was very rare, but it could happen. Since 1983 that distinction does not exist.  Some Amish, however, still have such a practice, and they are not alone.

Realizing this is extreme, I also realize, as I've seen pointed out twice, that land locking rich magnates cannot do it without local help. They always hire somebody, I've heard them referred to as "goons" to be their enforcer, and when they need legal help, they hire a Wyoming licensed attorney.  Indeed, in this instance, remarkably, the plaintiff did not use a Denver attorney, which I thought they likely would have. 

And this has always been the case.  Wyoming Stock Growers Association stock detectives were sometimes enforcers back in the late 19th Century, and they were hired men.  In the trial of the Invaders, a local Cheyenne attorney was used, but then again, that was a criminal case, which I do feel differently about.

Elk Mountain is basically mid-way, and out of the way, between Laramie, Rawlins and Saratoga.  People working for Iron Bar Holdings have to go to one of those places for goods and services.  There's really no reason the excluded locals need to sell them anything.  Keep people off. . .drive to Colorado for services.

And on legal services?  I don't know the lawyers involved, so I'm unlikely to every run into them. But I'm not buying them lunch as we often do as a courtesy while on the road, and if I were a local rancher, and keep in mind that outfits like Iron Bar Holdings don't help local ranchers keep on keeping on, I'd tell that person, if they stopped in to ask to go fishing or hunting, to pound sand.

If this sounds extreme, and it actually is, this is what happened with some of the law firms representing Donald Trump in his effort to steal the election.  They backed out after partners in their firms basically, it seems, told Trump's lawyers to chose Trump or the firm.

And there are many other examples.  Lawyers bear no social costs at all for whom they represent in civil suits.  People who regard abortion as murder will sit right down with lawyers representing abortionists, people seeking a radical social change will hire lawyers to advance the change, and the lawyers fellows feel no pressure as a result of that at all.

Maybe they should.

Or is that view fundamentally wrong?

Lex Anteinternet: Corner Crossing Upheld in a victory for sportsmen,...

Lex Anteinternet: Corner Crossing Upheld in a victory for sportsmen,...: 

Corner Crossing Upheld in a victory for sportsmen, public lands, and Wyomingites in general

I've posted on this a number of times, most recently here, where I gave the details:

The Invaders

The Oil City News broke the story of the Federal District Court having issued its ruling, last Friday, although not until yesterday. Not surprisingly, the declining Tribune didn't get it into their Sunday edition.

At any rate, the Federal Court held corner crossing is not trespass.

Ultimately, I'm sure, there will be an appeal, but this is a major victory for sportsmen, the public lands, and Wyomingites.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Upon reaching 60

Lex Anteinternet: Upon reaching 60: 

Upon reaching 60

That's how old I am today.

When I was young.  I was about three when this photos was taken, maybe two.  My father was 36 or 37.

Americans like to debate at what age you are "old", with that benchmark, and the one for middle age, moving over the years to some extent.  Some go so far as to claim that the term doesn't mean anything. 

It does, as you really do become older and then old, at some point.

The United Nations categorizes "older" as commencing at age 60, something, given their mission, that would encompass the totality of the human race.  Some polling you'll see suggests that Americans regard it actually starting at 59 or 57.  Pew, the respected polling and data institution, noted the following:

These generation gaps in perception also extend to the most basic question of all about old age: When does it begin? Survey respondents ages 18 to 29 believe that the average person becomes old at age 60. Middle-aged respondents put the threshold closer to 70, and respondents ages 65 and above say that the average person does not become old until turning 74.

Interesting.

It is not like flipping a switch, and it doesn't really happen to all people at the exact same time.  I'm often reminded of this when I observe people I've known for many years.  Men in particular, I used to think, aged at a much different rate than women.  I knew a few of my contemporaries who were getting pretty old by the time they were in their 30s, and I know a few men in their 70s who are in fantastic shape and appear much younger than they really are.  I recall thinking, back when I was in my late 20s, that my father was getting older, but wasn't old, right up until the time he died at age 62.

Having said that, I’m often now shocked, I hate to admit, by the appearance of women my own age, again that I knew when they were young.  It's not like I know every girl I went to high school with, but I know a few of them, and some of them have held up much better than others.  In that category, some of my close relatives have really held up well.

Up until recently, I could say that I've held up well, but this past year has been really rough health wise. First there was colon surgery in October, followed by a prolonged medical addressing of a thyroid nodule which was feared, at first, to be aggressive cancer. Working that out is still ongoing, but that now appears much less likely, meaning that only half the thyroid will need to be removed.  

All of that has reminded me of Jesus' address to Peter:

Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

John, Chapter 21.

Peter, by the way, was between age 64 and 68 when he was martyred.  St. Paul was over 60, it's worth noting, when he met the same fate.

It's been rough in other ways as well.  One thing is that, in spite of what people like to claim, your fate is really fixed by age 60.  You aren't going to leave your job as an accountant and become an Army paratrooper.¹ If you are a paratrooper, you're going to retire now, as 60 is the military's retirement cutoff age.  If you've spent decades in the Army, and retire at 60 (most servicemen retire before that), you aren't going on, probably, to a career you don't have any strong connection with.

In my case, as I started to type out here the other day and then did not, as it didn't read the way I really wanted it to, I can now look back on a long career, over 30 years, and largely regard it as a failure, even though almost everyone I know would regard it as a success.  I won't get over that.  I'd always hoped to make the judiciary, but I'm not going to, and there's no longer even any point in trying.  I'm reminded of this failure every time I appear in front of one of the new judges and see how incredibly young they now are, and also when I listen to suggestions that the retirement age for judges be raised up to the absurdly high 75.

At age 60, if I were to go to work for the state (which I'm also not going to), I couldn't really ever make the "Rule of 85" for retirement.  As a lifelong private practice attorney, I'm now actually at the age where most lawyers look at their career, and their income, and decide they can't retire, some retreating into their office personality as the last version of themselves and nothing else.  I'm not going to become a member of the legislature, something probably most young lawyers toy with the idea of.  I'm not going to become a game warden, something I pondered when young.²  I'm way past the point where most similar Federal occupations are age restricted, and for good reason.

This is, work wise, pretty much it.

I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

Hyman Roth, to Michael Corleone, in The Godfather, Part II ,

I'm also never going to own my own ranch, which was a decades long career goal.  I have acquired a fair number of cattle, but my operation is always going to be ancillary to my in laws at this point.  When I was first married my wife and I tried to find our own place, with she being much less optimistic about it than I. There were times, when the land cost less, that we could almost make, almost, a small place. We never quite did, and now, we're not going to.

Indeed, thinking back to St. Peter, I'm now at the age of "you can't", with some of the "can'ts" being medical.  I could when I was younger, but now I can't, or shouldn't.  Others are familial.  "You can't" is something I hear a lot, pertaining to a lot of things, ranging from what we might broadly call home economics, in the true economic sense, to short term and long term plans, to even acquisitions that to most people wouldn't be much, but in my circumstances, in the views of others, are.  Some are professional, as ironically it's really at some point in your 50s or very early 60s where you are by default fully professionally engaged, with that taking precedence over everything else, including time for anything else.

One of the most frustrating things about reaching this age, however, is seeing that you probably will never see how some things turn out, and you don't seem to have the ability to influence them.  I'm not, in this instance, referring to something like the Hyman Roth character again, in which he hopes to see the results of his criminal enterprise flourish but fears he won't live long enough to.  Indeed, I find myself curiously detached from concerns of this type that some people have.  I've noticed, for instance, the deep concern some aging lawyers have about their "legacy" in the law, which often translates to being remembered as a lawyer or their firm's carrying on.  I don't have those concerns, and indeed, taking the long view of things, I think it's really vanity to suppose that either of those wishes might be realized by anyone.

No, what I mean is that by this age there are those you know very closely, and you have reason to fear for their own long term fate, but you really don't have much you can do about it.  People who seem to be stuck in place, for instance, seem beyond the helping hand, and more than that, they don't really want, it seems, to be offered a hand.  People who have walked up to the church door but who won't go in as it means giving up grudges, burdens or hatreds, can't be coaxed in, even it means their soul is imperiled.  It recalls the last final lines of A River Runs Through It. .

I remember the last sermon I ever heard my father give, not long before his own death:

Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives, look upon a loved one in need and ask the same question: We are willing Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, that part we have to give… is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us… But we can still love them… We can love—completely—even without complete understanding….

I guess that's about right. 

Footnotes:

1.  Or, I might note, a Ukrainian Legionnaire.  You are too old to join.

Interestingly, I recently saw an article by a well known, I guess, newspaper reporter who attempted to join the U.S. Army in his upper 40s.  He apparently didn't know that you are well past the eligible age of enlistment at that point.  He was arguing that there should be some sort of special unit made for people like himself, or like he imagined himself, well-educated individuals in their upper 40s.  Why should there be if you can recruit people in their 20s?

2. Wyoming Game Wardens were once required to retire at age 55, but a lawsuit some decades ago overturned that. It, in turn, was later overruled, but by that time the state had changed the system. Since that time, it's set it again statutorily, with the age now being 65 by law.  There aren't, therefore, any 67-year-old game wardens.

Statutorily, the current law provides:

9-3-607. Age of retirement.

(a) Any employee with six (6) or more years of service to his credit is eligible to receive a retirement allowance under this article when he attains age fifty (50).

(b) Effective July 1, 1998, any employee retiring after July 1, 1998, with twenty-five (25) or more years of service may elect to retire and receive a benefit upon attaining age fifty (50) as described in W.S. 9-3-610.

(c) Repealed by Laws 1993, ch. 120, §§ 1, 2.

(d) Any employee in service who has attained age sixty-five (65), shall be retired not later than the last day of the calendar month in which his 65th birthday occurs. 

Age limitations of this type are tied to physical fitness.  But what about mental fitness?  As mentioned here before, Gen. Marshall forcibly retired most serving U.S. Army generals, or at least sidelined them, who were over 50 years of age during World War Two, and that had to do with their thinking.  We now allow judges to remain on the bench until they are 70.  Would 60 make more sense?  And can the same argument be made for lawyers, who are officers of the court?

Lex Anteinternet: Some basic economics, for economists

Lex Anteinternet: Some basic economics, for economists: 

Some basic economics, for economists

The simple reason being, economist grasp almost nothing about the economy and how it actually works, on a more existential level.

Including, even why the economy exists.

And politicians, speaking about the economy, don't look at the whole, but the part, as the whole isn't very satisfactory in a right/left construct.

Indeed, left wing politicians would be horrified by a real deep reform of the economy in ways that would actually work, as would right wing politicians.

Witness the latest by economist Robert Reich:

The economic message that will get Biden reelected and give Dems a majority in both Houses of Congress

Indeed, let's break them down and look at the uncomfortable truth.

The economic goal should be more jobs at higher wages. Right?

Let's start there.  That seems reasonable enough, so I'll basically concede it. But perhaps a better position would be to state that the economic goal would be more worthwhile jobs that allow for individual family independence, at middle class reasonable wages. 

Because, what's an economy for? To serve people.

It isn't really "more decent jobs at higher wages".  Indeed, it would really be all jobs at family supporting wages.  That's not really the same thing.

I don't know that Reich would disagree with that, but it's important to keep it in overall mind.  Economist tend to think that all jobs are super nifty, not matter what they are, as long as 100% of everyone who can work is working, and for good wages.  

Actual people, however, don't think that way. They want decent jobs worth doing to support themselves, and their families if they have one, and most people do.

The irony here is that the left and the right have come around to the same position on this, over the year.  It's a very Soviet, warehouse the children you unfortunately had so that everyone can work, until they are old, of course, as the Boomer run the economy and it's okay if they retire.

We continue.

Yet the Fed, corporate economists, and the GOP have turned the goal upside down — into fewer jobs and lower wages. Otherwise, they say, we’ll face more inflation.

Bob can't quite seem to grasp that unless an overheated economy is slowed down, wages erode.  And the Fed, etc., isn't trying to depress wages.  Inflation itself erodes wages.  They're trying to slow inflation in the only method known to work.

He knows that, but he has a pet thesis that is, as he would put it: 

Rubbish.

And here, several paragraphs later, is the thesis. 

The Fed has raised borrowing costs at 10 consecutive meetings, pushing its benchmark rate to over 5 percent. Yet inflation has barely budged. In April, it dropped to 4.9 percent (year-over-year) from 5 percent in March — according to Wednesday’s Labor Bureau data.

Why are the Fed’s rate hikes having so little effect?

Actually, historically, that's not bad.

An ideal inflation rate would be 0%, or quite frankly slight, perhaps 1% or 2% deflation, to recover some lost ground.  5%, however, is headed in the right direction.  3% for much of my life was regarded as basically no inflation at all, and the extremely low inflationary rates we had until COVID were simply extraordinary.

Oh, COVID, remember that? The thing that closed the ports and kept good from coming in, reminding Americans that we make nothing.

A thing like that could almost have been inflationary.

A think like that may also have served to remind Americans that some of the jobs they had left, pre COVID, were awful.  Note the big decrease in long haul truck drivers, employees in an industry that had already seen a massive departure of Americans in favor of foreign nationals, and which is effectively subsidized, as we've noted elsewhere.

It's an awful job.  It's almost as if we might want to think about doing this more efficiently.

If only private companies could be induced to ship things by rail. . . .oh wait. . . 

Anyhow, raising interest rates hasn't worked as it hasn't been high enough, that's why.  5% is a joke.  It ought to be at least 8%.

And, additionally, because this inflationary cycle is global, that's also why.

Because, left wing economist, global food prices and energy prices have risen dramatically as a former far left wing operative, now politicians, and a person with a strange relationship (listening right wing politicians) with Donald J. Trump, has invaded a neighbor resulting in the first peer to peer, large scale, conventional war since the Korean War.

That's a lot of the reason why.

But, left wing economist states:

Because inflation is not being propelled by an overheated economy. It’s being propelled by overheated profits.

Okay, I'm a distributist, and I'd favor addressing this to the element it's the truth, but it's just frankly not very true.   One basic fact is that those supposedly profiteering business are taking in money that's worth less every day.  No wonder they feel they have to take in more.

But Bob says:

So, what’s causing inflation? Corporations with enough monopoly power to raise their prices and fatten their profits — which the Fed’s rate hikes barely affect.

Okay, well then let's go to a Distributist economy and limit the number of areas business enterprises can operate the corporate business form.  That would be extremely deflationary, make for more good jobs at a wider level, and be much more stable.  It'd do a whole lot more than raising taxes, as Bob suggest, which would be most likely passed on to everyone else.

Any regular economist in favor of that?

Absolute not, as they're all really just corporate capitalist economist and favor slightly tinkering with the mechanics of things. Basically, the difference between a conservative economist and a liberal economist is the difference motor heads of the 70s exhibited on whether they were Holly Carb or Edlebrock fans.

Big whoop.

But here's another uncomfortable truth.  Let's go back to the first item.

The economic goal should be more jobs at higher wages. Right?

Part of the reason that wages rose is that during COVID there was a big decrease in immigration, legal and illegal, into the United States.

For years, economist on the left and right have claimed that immigrants take jobs that Americans won't, never mind that they take what are frankly a lot of middle class jobs in some industries.  As they didn't come in, Americans took those jobs, but demanded living wages.

Supposedly, in the economist world, immigration had no impact on inflation, or jobs, and in fact boosted the economy.  They may have boosted the economy, but its now conclusively demonstrated that they did so by depressing wages.

And this worked an injustice for the native born, including the native born poor.  This was always known at some level as it provided the fuel to the occasional riots and domestic strife at the inner city urban level.

This has also caused liberals like commentator Chuck Todd to directly claim that we're experiencing inflation as we aren't seeing immigrants come in. But what this implicitly admits is that the high American immigration rate operates to keep wages low, and that is what was depressing inflation.  Absent the high immigration levels, wages would rise to their natural level.

And that's what they've been doing.

Setting aside Donald Trump's pal, Vlad "if Czar Nikki owned I still do" Putin, part of what is going on is at attempt at wage stabilization, at American living wage levels, something that was frustrated by decades of wage erosion due to immigration.

Lex Anteinternet:

Lex Anteinternet:  :