Roosevelt and Lord Keynes

--Economic Depression--

John Maynard Keynes was an English economist. He wrote a book entitled "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money." He told friends he was writing the most important book of the century, and was probably right. Although the book was not well organized, it was correct and a major departure from mainstream economics. It was published in 1936, but its elements were dissemenated earlier, during the early days of the Great Depression. It took about 25 years to absorb and arrange elements of the book in readable, understandable language. No one in any academic economics program of any kind anywhere should try to read the book itself--much too difficult for the brightest of scholars. Instead, find an Intermediate Macroeconomics book from a good college bookstore.
During the depression, in about 1934, with 1/4 of workers out of jobs, Lord Keynes (a 'Baron') conferred with, and visited Franklin Roosevelt. He returned to England amazed at how little Roosevelt knew about economics. However, Roosevelt was busy with the New Deal which, among many other things, established the ''Work Progress Administration'' or "The WPA," in 1935. It was later called "The Work Projects Administration," and ran until 1943. The objective was to give workers jobs by deficit spending--an act of philanthropy, not based on economic theory. You can still find bronze plaques saying "Work Projects Administration," embedded in sidewalks, on bridges and other edifices all over the country.
Keynes commented that although ignorant of economic theory, Roosevelt was doing the exact right thing for the wrong reasons. A major part of Keynes's book deals with the wisdom of deficit spending. If the economy sags, spend money!. So spending took place and the economy started to revive; so well that in 1938 Congress demanded a balanced budget. Ignorant of the implications, Roosevelt consented and it was balanced. The economy plummeted quickly. In the end it was only WWII and massive deficit spending that broke the United States out of depression.
During the war and ensuing years economists got a grip on the ideas of Keynes and had to accept his notions. Although deficit spending increases the national debt, the idea was that that really didn't matter much. After all, to whom was the debt owed? To ourselves! There is a national debt 'ceiling,' but it is instructive to note that it has been raised many times. No, it isn't exactly good, but it isn't the evil supposed. Were it not for Keynsian economics, we would have lost WWII and there would never have been the prosperity we have seen since. It is also instructive to note that the United States is currently deficit spending like never before. It remains to be seen if we can get away with it without serious direct consequences; i.e., borrowing to prop up a house of cards whose foundation is based on 'untruths.' The current debt is 6 trillion, about equal to the amount of inherited money that today supports millions of American families.

Clavius's Bull's-eye

The Calendar--Julius Caesar to Pope Gregory XIII
Introduction: In this short discussion, I will spare readers most of the arithmetic. There is no mathematics--just arithmetic. And I will be referring to 'fast' calendars. About that, keep some things in mind, for it can get confusing. Not difficult, just confusing. You can read books about calendars, find all sorts of 'stuff' on the internet, or even get a Ph.D. in the history and future (Ha, as you will see) of calendars. Keep the following things in mind always: A 'fast' calendar says it is earlier than it really is. Or, it's later than the calendar says. And note that 'calendar' and 'clocks' will at times be used interchangeably.

Late in his life, 100BC - 44BC, Julius Caesar decided a new calendar was necessary to keep track of where we were in our path around the Sun (the 'ecliptic.') This was for agrarian and general purposes like what to expect the weather to be like and all sorts of other reasons, --birthdays and holidays, etc. The calendars in use were put together for other reasons like religious events, customs, and sometimes just whimsy. They were all very inaccurate and crazy, with 5-day weeks, 6-week months, 8-month years. None served well, and adjustments had to be made continually.

So Caesar's astronomers set up a calendar based on the revolutions of Earth around the Sun. At first they counted 365. Then they realized it was more like 365 1/4. The quick fix for this was to have one 366-day year every four years. Thus leap year, with the addition of February 29, the only place on the calendar the additional day would work out. It worked well--almost. But the true tropical year, one revolution around and relative to the Sun, was actually 365.2422 tropical days. So there was an overstatement of 365.25 - 365.2422 = .0078 days per year. In 400 years, this amounted to a 3.12-day overstatement. The Julian calendar was fast, saying it was 3.12 days earlier than it really was. Or it was later than the calendar said. When it indicated the vernal equinox, it was really 3.12 days later than that. So the calendar equinox crept backwards in the ecliptic path around the Sun. (A 'sidereal year,' a revolution around the Sun as observed by a distant star, shows the true Earth day--one revolution on its axis--to be 23 hours and 56 minutes. A fix for that was pretty irrelevant and not persued, even if it was understood.)
By 1582, there was a 10-day error--when the calendar equinox (March 21) arrived, (set to March 21 in the fourth century, by the true equinox) it was really 10 days after the true equinox. The calendar said it was earlier than it was. Enter Pope Gregory XIII and his astronomers Clavius and colleagues. Gregory realized farmers would soon be planting, if they used the calendar equinox as a guide, way before the true equinox.
In an ingenious scheme, Clavius proposed and Gregory agreed: 'Suppress' 10 days, the 11th to 20th of March, then make only century years divisible by 4, leap years. This corrected the calendar and subtracted 3 days in 400 years, thereby reducing the error to .12 days in 400 years. That's a day in 3333 and 1/3 years. Trying to improve this accuracy is academic folderol. But isn't academe rife with folderol anyhow?

Now to beat the horse a couple more times--just to make sure he's dead:

Your grandfather rose about 1/2 hour earlier than you do. You sleep in. If he got up at 6 AM, your getting up at 6 AM is really getting up 32.4 minutes later: 75 x 25.92 seconds = 32.4 minutes.

If you're crazy enough to go to Times Square on New Year's Eve, know that: At clock 12M it's really 12:00:25.9; and at true 12M, the ball says 11:59:34.08. Jump up and down and kiss everybody at 11:59:34.08.

That's all.

The Pentagon

Recently I heard a TV hype about something called "The E-Ring." I knew immediately it was a reference to the Pentagon, specifically the outer of five 'rings,' A, B, C, D, and E. Turns out it's going to be a drama series. I know information about the Pentagon is all over the internet but I've resisted all of it to stay subjective. All you need to know is here.
You have to work there a year or two to appreciate what a wonder it is, and what a horror it is as well. The five rings are corridors with single offices on both sides. And there are five floors of them. 25.000 people work there. You have to walk up to a mile to get to it from the main parking lot, after a murder drive in the worst possible traffic. There are 'small car' parking areas. Seeing eleven VW's in a row wasn't really hard to understand. The era of compact cars was just beginning.
The place was built fast in 1941 to consolidate military offices scattered all over Washington. But make no mistake--the military grew and is still all over Washington. A trifle disguised--officers wear uniforms one day a week. So multiply the number of uniforms you see by five to get an idea of how many military officers there really are.
The Pentagon is .2 miles long on a side, a mile around. The total area is .0687 square miles. But there are five aboveground floors, so multiply that by five, getting .3435 square miles, about 220 acres. An acre is exactly 90 and 3/4 yards of a football field. A lot of territory.
The Pentagon is relatively flat. For profile and protection purposes, but moreso for efficient movement of personnel from point to point. The longest possible distance--a corner of the top floor of the E-ring to either corner of the bottom floor of the E-ring, on the side opposite--can be walked in less than three minutes. You can't get lost. There are directions all over, like B2-141--the second floor of the B-ring, office 141.
If you work in a sensitive area you never see the light of day--windows are blacked out. It is a dark, gloomy, dreary place to work even if your windows are clear. No one who works there much likes working there--it is a nuisance. If you see a TV production showing cushy plush offices like the set of 'West Wing,' that's just TV and not at all what The Pentagon is about. There are a lot of small cafeterias, all standup. If you want to go out to lunch, you'd better hurry--10 minutes to your car, 10 minutes to your favorite restaurant, 20 minutes to eat and drink, and another 10 minutes back to your park and still another 10 minutes to your office. Few leave to have lunch elsewhere. Keeps the place sober, much unlike most other military work places.
There is one bright spot--'The Concourse'--a large area on the ground floor with various private concessions, a barbershop, bookstore, food places, and a lot of free space for the daily 'parade:' About a half of Pentagon employees are women, and half of them 'babes,' who come to see and show off for the uniforms. And that's why the men all come too. I don't recall going to The Concourse for a haircut or a book. There is also a courtyard you can walk out to in the center of the building. Benches, shrubs, flowers, etc. All very nice especially in contrast to the stark inside. It always looked like a 'bull's-eye' to me.
If you go to Washington, don't even bother making arrangements to visit this place. It's just a crashing bore! Yuh, you'll see all kinds of Admirals and Generals and Chiefs of Staff--all very thrilling if you're a 10-year-old.
I want to stay away from politics, sex, religion, and sports on my blog, but must mention the terrorist crash into The Pentagon. Very suspicious. Film shows the fireball--quite the wrong color for jet fuel (gasoline and kerosene) explosions. Also, the stall speed for a loaded Boeing 747 is over 200 mph. If that building was hit the way we were told, the plane would've easily plowed through three or more rings, not the first and a bit of the second. Did they show us that it crashed into ground and then slid into the building? No. Did it? I don't know. That's that!
A word about Top Secret messages: We got them all directly from Vietnam. In a one word description: Boring! I remember one of thousands. It was from a loony U.S. ambassador in SE Asia--and his really ridiculous plan for a solution to a problem. It circulated among us for its humor value.
Finally, The Pentagon is not in Washington, but across the river in Arlington VA.