Author: Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.

Our Future

West coast cities are turning into sewers under the Democrats.  They just flat out don’t know how to government worth a damn.  Good at getting your vote; terrible at actually governing.  Chicago is another example.  Is New York next — about to slide back to the crazy, lawless place it was back in the 70s and early 80s?  Wouldn’t surprise me because the long-term residents there are leaving in droves, and being replaced with poor immigrants, many of them illegal immigrants.  We all know how that ends up.  The tax base gets eroded, while welfare costs go through the roof.

Cities overrun with the homeless, illegal immigrants, and drug addicts…needles and human waste everywhere  — our future.

Long-time residents of San Francisco can’t get out of the city fast enough.  They are fleeing.  I don’t blame them a bit.  I would too.

The real tipping point for a city comes when the police stop policing because it has become too dangerous for them to go into large sections of the city.  That’s already happened in Chicago.  That would be the next leg down for San Fran and LA.  When that happens, the descent into chaos is unavoidable.

Most Americans have the happy illusion that ours is a well ordered and peaceful society.  That might be the case for country life and small towns across the country, but when you get to the level of cities, the facts tell a quite different story.  St. Louis, for instance, is ranked the 16th most dangerous city in the entire world.  I don’t think it will be long before the United States has a city in the top 10, perhaps more than one.

California

My Story

Triglycerides

For as long as I can remember, my triglycerides number has been very troubling.  Always in the 300+ range and usually generally well into the 300s.  I think I actually had a number in the 400s at one point.

Try as I might, I could never get that number down to even a half way reasonable level.  Never.

But now I’ve been doing 18:6 intermittent fasting for about 12 months.  The entire purpose is to get the body to use ketones (body fat) and not just glucose.  The theory is that after 12 hours from your most recent meal, the body begins to use stored fat in addition to glucose, so with a 18:6 regimen, you get 6 hours with the body burning some stored fat. 

And surprise surprise my most recent triglycerides number is 103.  I did a double take when I saw the number — couldn’t believe it.  But it makes perfect sense — triglycerides measures fat in the blood, and the IF goal is to burn body fat.

 

My Story

Republicans and Trump

Where the Republicans and Trump fall down — they are climate change deniers which is kind of silly at this point; a tax cut for the very wealthy was unwise given the enormous size of the national debt, not to mention that the really rich have gotten a lot richer recently; most of the country wants reasonable constraints on owning military type weapons as well as uniform background checks; they really haven’t come up with a realistic alternative to Obamacare; they are spending enormous amounts on the military — is it too much?; and where is the national infrastructure program that everyone knows the country needs?

My Story

DAX

I’m wondering if the DAX in Germany is about to collapse.  The German 10 year has fallen sharply and quickly to a negative .251%, which is much worse than even the Japanese bond.  And the German bank DB looks like it’s disintegrating, despite the merger plans.  Would not be surprised to see a sharp collapse soon in the DAX like 1929 — when there are suddenly lots of sellers but no buyers.

Of course the entire easy money economic system in Europe is a complete fraud.  A currency that pays no interest has no value.  But when will someone step forward and say the emperor has no clothes?  You’ve got literally mountains of debt but no growth.  Sound familiar?

My Story

Liberal Remedy for Everything

All the liberals and “progressives” have the same solution for everything.  Target the extremely rich — the 1 percenters — with much higher taxes.  I was listening to one politician the other day recommend a tax rate of 80% for the people in the 1 percent income bracket, and she said it without missing a beat — unapologetically.

That would mean that the government would claim 4 out of every 5 dollars earned by a member of the 1 percent bracket.  In effect, the super rich wouldn’t be working for their own self-interest anymore.  They would be working for the self interest of the government.

The top 1 percent already pay 37.6% of all the taxes, i.e., they already pay way more taxes than one would expect.  But according to these liberals and progressives, that isn’t nearly enough.

Tax Data

My Story