Comments on: Somedays I hate capitalists

By: charles austin

charles austin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:55:06 +0000

For the record, 1964 and before is 90% silver in dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollars. Half dollars only from 1965-1970 are 40% silver.

Yeah, I’ve collected coins for 30 years now.

Thinking real hard about dumping all my gold at $1,000 an ounce with college costs looming.

By: The R Man

The R Man — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:00:48 +0000

Actually, yeah, I hope we can work it out with ‘em. I have my doubts sometimes, though.

Yeah, I’d kinda forgot that Grits had Alzheimer’s, but his son Tom mentioned it on “Gun Talk” radio last Sunday and said he’d made his peace with his father dying a good long time ago, which I, too, had done with a couple of great-uncles with Alzheimers back in the early 1990s. I enjoyed his writings a great deal also-him and Buckley both-they’ll be sorely missed.

Not illiterate at all, sir.

The R Man

By: TFG

TFG — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:53:23 +0000

First I’ve heard about Grits…I guess they were busy on the news dissecting native garb and the political uses thereof and other unuseful horseshit. Damn. I had books by him. My dad adored his work. We always swapped mags and stuff with his columns. I guess this is how it goes, and I hate it.

I’d rather work it out with the Musselmen, but they got to stop fucking with us first. Read your Koran, just drop the great Satan bullshit.

Sorry to be so illiterate…I’ve had a few.

By: The R Man

The R Man — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:01:36 +0000

I still find silver pre-1965 quarters and dimes now and again, and put them aside-apparently with the value of the silver, they’re actually worth about ten times the face value at present just for the metal.

I’m a little surprised there’s not more of a gasoline price gap between here in SWMO and Chaffinland-I saw gas down to $2.919 today at a couple places.

One of many reasons I should never attempt a blog is that I might ask questions (thinking of the high retail price of gasoline) like, if Americans would be honest, how many of them would think it worthwhile to nuke lots of “Musselmen” if, for each one million or so of them we vaporized, we could permanently lower the price of gas by a penny, and to what level would you like to see the price drop? I’m guessing “80+%” and “free,” but I’m sure that makes me some sort of atavistic throwback hatemongering xenophobe.

Whoa-Speedy Haworth, “Grits” Gresham, and William F. Buckley, all dead within about a week of one another-too bad.

The R Man

By: TFG

TFG — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:28:22 +0000

Hell, I don’t think anyone is skimming off the top. I think, just like I said, that it’s just a price hike, in time to soften us up for a bigger one. I do know how retail works.

I’m 99.9% sure that it was a quarter in the movie. I can’t remember about the book. Dang, I got to find that book. But, dude — seriously. How in the hell do you remember the silver content of coinage from 1958? I remember a lot of trivial shit, but that’s a revelation of sorts. I too worked fast food, and I was shoveling that silver in my pocket as fast as I could for my dad. As a manager, I got to count out the drawers, so I was taking some advantage. I sure as heck didn’t remember the dates, though — I just looked at the edges. You could do that back then.

By: charles austin

charles austin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:15:38 +0000

Hey, one other thought… in NCFOM, in the filling station, Anton says the coin he is flipping is dated 1958. Now that had to be at least a quarter, if not something larger. The problem is that dimes, quarters, half dollars, etc. minted in 1958 would have been silver, and as such should not have still been in circulation in 1980. Having worked in a retail food establishment in my high school years, I know it wouldn’t have been in circulation very long.

By: charles austin

charles austin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:12:48 +0000

Well, whoever is skimming off the top (aside from the gummint), it sure ain’t the poor bastards working at the filling stations.

By: TFG

TFG — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:43:48 +0000

Now, I know I’m not entitled to anything, Charles. I’m not royalty, after all. I’m just chiming in on the gas price dealio — just a data point. I do, though, think it’s funny to see every gas station and every gas brand in a 120 mile stretch of highway go up the same amount in a less-than-12-hour period. Not funny ha-ha, either. Although, I do have a mental image of one guy at a Shell doing it in China Grove, and then the next guy down the road at the Exxon doing, and so on and so on, in a ripple effect, all the way down 87 till it hit the Rio Grande.

And personally, I thought they had shown amazing restraint holding it at 2.99 for a few weeks, since the market could quite obviously bear more, and they’d already broken the psychological $3 barrier.

By: charles austin

charles austin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:23:05 +0000

Changes in gas prices do not occur in one cent quantums. Heck, once I had someone stop me from filling my car up so they could adjust the price (upwards, of course) before I started. But I don’t take that as a criticism of capitalism, per se.

There may be many reasons why gas prices went up by 10 cents during the day in question. Maybe it was taxes, or the distributor, of the distiller, or the corporate Mojo Mart executives. Or maybe there were rumors that a refinery went down, or that Obama is a lead pipe cinch to win, or that the earth is getting dramatically cooler!

Anyway, you aren’t entitled to $2.99 gas any more than you are entitled to free healthcare. I’ve seen too much to expect complete moral or ideological purity from folks selling much of anything, but it’s still the best system going.

Caveat emptor.