Monthly Archives: October 2021

President Bad Ass

by in Boundary Behavior, Death, History, Hmmm..., Politics, Risk, War | 19 Comments

Andrew Jackson, or “Old Hickory”, was the seventh, and perhaps most controversial President of the United States, appointed by the Electoral College in 1828 after defeating his opponent, then incumbent President, John Quincy Adams, in a landslide victory.  Most people know Jackson only as the Dead President whose face graces the twenty-dollar Federal Reserve Note… which is oddly ironic, considering his fervent opposition to the creation of a central bank.  But for those of his own time, he was known primarily for his Chuck Norris like reputation as a legendary bad ass.

Jackson had established his own fortunes by rising from among the “planter class”, and remained a political populist advocating for the common man. He pushed for the democratization of Federal offices and an end to the Electoral College, and used his veto power while President to block what he saw as “corruption” or affronts to civil liberties.  However, Jackson also built his wealth on the labors of as many as 300 slaves who worked his own cotton plantation in Tennessee as well as a family plantation in Mississippi.

An unapologetic slave-owner, Jackson was known to have had slaves whipped to increase their productivity.  And in an October 1804 Tennessee Gazette advertisement, he offered a reward for the return of a fugitive slave which included, “…ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred,” which was essentially an invitation to murder.

Jackson first rose to popular acclaim during the War of 1812, after leading a regiment of about 2,000 volunteers to New Orleans. But when the only barely competent US General, James Wilkinson, ran short of supplies for his own soldiers, Jackson was commanded to dismiss his men and to relinquish his supplies to Wilkinson. Jackson handed over his supplies as commanded. But instead of abandoning his troops without provisions, he elected to lead them back to Nashville.

As the starving soldiers began to fall ill, Jackson and his officers placed the sick on their own horses. Jackson then used his own money to purchase provisions for his men, nearly bankrupting himself in the process.  This would earn Jackson the nickname, “Old Hickory”, in deference to his unyielding toughness.  This reputation, in part, forced the US government to reimburse Jackson for his expenses.

Jackson later led about 5,000 poorly trained soldiers against some 10,000 battle-hardened British troops in the Battle of New Orleans .  After a January 8, 1814 British attack on American defenses, Jackson reported only 71 total casualties, including 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing or captured. The British, however, suffered 2,037 casualties, with 291 dead including the British General, Edward Pakenham, along with 1,262 wounded, and 484 missing or captured. Despite the war having technically ended two weeks earlier, the battle was seen as such a rout for the British that it was hailed by Americans as the, “Second American Revolution”, and Jackson was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

After the war, Jackson maintained control of his troops, involving himself in a conflict against several Native American tribes who had allied themselves with escaped slaves in Florida. The “Seminole” tribes occupied the border regions between the United States and Spanish Florida.  Seminole raids on settlements in Georgia resulted in Jackson leading a detachment into Florida, where Jackson destroyed “Negro Fort”, killing most of the fugitive slaves who were defending it, as well as many allied Choctaw.

In December of 1817, fearing that a Spanish promise of freedom for fugitive slaves would turn Florida into a refuge for runaways, President James Monroe ordered Jackson to lead his soldiers against the Seminole and Creek. Jackson wrote back to Monroe, “Let it be signified to me through any channel… that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished.” Jackson had unilaterally decided that it would be better to simply seize Florida from Spain!

Monroe immediately responded to, “…terminate the conflict.” But Jackson’s response was to take his soldiers into Florida on March 15, 1818, seize Pensacola, crush Spanish resistance, massacre the Seminole, and capture and execute two British agents, Robert Ambrister and Alexander Arbuthnot.

The United States had not declared war with Spain, and the summary execution of two British citizens created a diplomatic incident. So upon his return, Jackson was put on trial for violations of the US Constitution. However, then Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, defended Jackson, insisting that his actions would merely expedite Spain’s inevitable sale of Florida to the US. And as Spain did, in fact, sell Florida to the United States in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, Jackson was exonerated. However, Jackson would never forget the withering condemnations he had received from then Speaker of the House, Henry Clay.

Jackson was notorious for his short temper. And while there may have been an aspect of exaggeration involved in his reputation, those who knew him took it seriously. Jackson fought his first duel in 1788, ending with both men firing into the air. But in 1806, Jackson actually allowed himself to be shot in the chest so that he would have time to aim carefully and kill his opponent. The event earned Jackson a reputation as brutally calculating and cold-blooded, and the bullet he received remained in his chest for the remainder of his life.

Jackson was also shot and badly wounded in the left shoulder after a run-in with the relative of a man killed in a duel that he had seconded. Astonishingly, Jackson is said to have been either directly or indirectly involved in 103 duels during his life, despite dueling being an ostensibly illegal activity. While most actual duels likely ended in either the other party backing down or in seconds negotiating an alternative, an 1828 political pamphlet implied that Jackson had killed or maimed fourteen men in duels, and it was jested that Jackson, “rattles like a bag of marbles.”

Many of the duels that directly involved Jackson were caused by rumors about his wife, Rachel. Jackson had married her after a questionable divorce from an abusive husband, and Jackson remained very protective of both her and of her reputation. But during Jackson’s run for president, his wife became the target of malicious political attacks, precipitating numerous challenges. When Rachel died suddenly of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, it deeply affected the new President Elect.  And Jackson blamed his political enemies for her death, including Vice President, John C. Calhoun.  At his wife’s funeral Jackson proclaimed, “May God Almighty forgive her murderers. I never can.”

Jackson apparently didn’t need a gun to be dangerous, however. In 1835, while then President Jackson was exiting the US Capitol after attending a funeral, a man aimed a pistol at the President and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. The man then pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired, possibly due to the day’s unusually humid weather.

Apparently well accustomed to having firearms pointed at him, Jackson didn’t flee. Instead, the infuriated 67-year old President proceeded to attack the man with his cane, beating him senseless. Jackson stopped beating his would be attacker only after being pulled away by others fearing that the President would beat the man to death. Historians believe that this was the first attempted assassination of a sitting President… evidently by someone unfamiliar with getting a piece of “Old Hickory”.

On the last day of his presidency, Jackson famously stated that he had but two regrets, that he had been, “…unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun.” Even on his deathbed, he was quoted as regretting that he had not hanged Calhoun for treason. Andrew Jackson died as one of the most controversial leaders in American history in 1845 at the age of 78 due to congestive heart failure. And that was probably the first good night of rest in years for many of his political enemies.

An Equity of Equities

by in Boundary Behavior, Hmmm..., Mystery, Numbers, Politics | 25 Comments

Someone considerably younger recently asked me for some research advice after finding herself down a rabbit hole regarding an essay on “money”. Mainly, she was inquiring as to any sources she could consult to clarify just how money actually works. Unfortunately, I probably wasn’t much help. Our conversation ended with the question from her, “So what is ‘money’ anyway?”

“Money” is generally defined as anything that serves as a mutually agreed upon representative medium exchangeable for goods or services, or for the settlement of debts. But that’s a pretty broad definition, partly due to that aspect of, “mutually agreed upon”. “Crypto-currencies” and government-issued “fiat currencies”, as well as “quantitative easing”, national debt and inflation certainly leave one wondering as to what it is that we’ve supposedly agreed.

The ancient Egyptians used barley and other crops as money, since government food stores were the state’s guaranteed minimum income after the end of seasonal harvests left most everyone unemployed.  But more than two-thousand years ago, gold and silver became commonly agreed upon mediums, simply as easy ways to move something of value between different barters, dates or places. Regardless, what gives gold and silver such a value isn’t anything of particular utility.  Practical items were better made of bronze, or later steel.

Gold and silver were simply scarce commodities, really suitable only for decorative purposes… in other words, as displays of wealth.  The “Lydian Lion” is perhaps the first gold and silver coinage based on such a concept, dating back to around 800 BC.  These were cast from “electrum”, a natural alloy of gold and silver.  Since the actual value of the metal varied from coin to coin, an official seal bearing the image of a lion stamped into the metal gave each coin a uniform value.

The arbitrary value of such coinage wasn’t lost on the Greeks, Romans, or others who followed.  An easy way to extend the royal gold and silver reserves was merely to produce coinage with a decreed value somewhat greater than the trade value of the actual metal content.  Indeed, between the first and late third-centuries AD, Roman coinage went from almost 50% precious metal content to as little as 2%…
with predictable results.

Regardless, at some point it becomes difficult to carry around any more coins, or to wear any more gold chains, bracelets, tiaras, crowns or grillz.  So, people began to deposit their excess gold, silver, and embarrassing jewelry into secured vaults, accepting official documentation of their ownership. These documents acquired the same value as the gold and silver they could withdraw, the presumed value of a thing thus transferred to its mere representation.

Of course, it wasn’t long before some sketchy accountant was writing-off debts with official tallies that didn’t actually represent anything at all.  This wasn’t necessarily a problem… as long as no one found out.  Smart (and lucky) bankers could use this imaginary reserve of gold to make investments that grew their own wealth more than enough to cover what they’d promised at the start.  Hence, this mere record of wealth was based in the trust, however misplaced, that it might have some future worth.

Money is consequently an artifact of social behavior.  It’s nothing more, or less, that an emergent phenomenon of faith in a conserved representation of value, the physical manifestation of a promise.  New types of money have been created throughout human history, from beads and minted coins to “fiat” and digital currencies.  In every case, their exchange values are ultimately determined by an aspect of trust derived merely from social acceptance.

Scarcity, however, whether natural or through hoarding, or simply imagined, is what maintains the perception of value in a money.  Random stones are easily enough obtained that the local quarry will exchange a ton of them for a twenty-dollar bill.  Consequently, people are more likely to accept a serial-numbered portrait of Andrew Jackson than a pickup-load of rocks in exchange for a bag of groceries or for mowing your lawn.  Twenty-dollar bills are thus perceived as proportionally that much less common than rocks… at least in principle.

So what would happen if all hoarded wealth was released into the world and redistributed equitably?  Just trying to redistribute the supposed $44-trillion US held by the world’s wealthiest “one-percent”, we run into a bit of a problem. There isn’t actually enough cash in existence to account for what they claim to have on paper.  So in the spirit of, “Eat the rich,” what if we simply redistribute everything.  Let’s open the floodgates and allow all wealth to be suddenly redistributed equally to the Earth’s present 7.9-billion humans.  What could each of us expect in that ultimate, one shot, mother-of-all-payouts?

Harking back to those Ancient Egyptians, we’d first get about four-tenths of an acre of arable land to farm, along with some food with which to barter from that we didn’t eat ourselves.  Assuming food production doesn’t collapse, we’d each receive around 2,800 calories per day, more than enough to cover the 1,600 to 2,100 calories per day needs of an average human.  However, most would be from grains or rice.  We’d have a problem with fats, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in legumes, fruits, and nuts.  And we’d be severely shorted proteins in the mere 80-grams we’d get, with only 29-grams from animal sources that could provide all of the essential amino acids.

Getting around to the displays of wealth part, the approximately 170,000 metric tons of silver presently in the possession of humans (90% of all silver ever mined throughout history has been irretrievably lost) would be enough to give every person about seven-tenths of a troy-ounce… worth about $17.50 US at current market values. Gold would work out rather better. The around 60,000 tons of gold in various reserves would be enough to give each person a little over two-tenths of a troy-ounce, worth about $390 at current rates. It’s when we move on to fiat currencies that things start to get serious.

With a redistribution of all of the world’s physical currency supplies, estimated at around $30-trillion US, we’d all receive about $3,800 in hard cash.  Add in the $50-trillion US that exists only as numbers in bank accounts, and we’d also be handed a bank card with another $6,300 on it.  Unfortunately, we’d each also be handed a bill for about $9,500 US to cover the world’s outstanding government debts, now totaling something like $75-trillion. (But who’s keeping count?)

Finally, we could redistribute all of the world’s corporate wealth, real-estate, business and personal assets, and “extralegal” endeavors, all estimated to be worth a staggering $290-trillion US! This would leave each person on Earth holding around $36,700 US in bits and pieces of various holdings… stocks and bonds, patents and copyrights, office and industrial space, resources and mineral-rights, raw materials and supplies, goods and inventories, equipment and machinery, systems and infrastructure, and even some counterfeit money and illicit drugs.

But wait! There’s more… Worldwide investments in derivatives account for a quadrillion-dollars US in speculative financial assets!  And dividing up the value of all of those fanciful prospective windfalls, not that unlike the otherwise worthless paper that some early banker created out of thin air to cover his investments, would give each person on Earth another approximately $125,000 US…
in imaginary wealth.

Scorched Earth

by in Altitude, Environment, Photography | 36 Comments

This region of the Sierra Nevada mountains had its first large fire of the season at the start of summer, the “Tamarack Fire“.  It was started by a lightning strike along a ridge in a remote, high country area of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.  This afternoon, I decided to take a drive and survey the burn, which borders access to a local favorite area of the high country.

I don’t know how many of the trees will survive, though many are obviously dead.  Trees seem to have burned in two ways, sometimes directly adjacent to each other.  Some looked like they were merely scorched black, still holding onto brown pine-needles.  Others are simply blackened skeletons.

Since it was a naturally ignited fire, and initially limited to a single tree burning on a ridgetop, the decision was made not to risk sending in fire crews.  The US Forest Service even posted a video of the smoldering tree in a Facebook post with a message to Pacific Crest Trail hikers that they might encounter some smoke from a “quarter-acre fire” in an area, “…surrounded by granite rocks, a small lake and sparse fuels.“

Many trees were cut down, but apparently for two different reasons.  The ones to the right were felled by firefighters in order to stop a crown fire (fire in the top of the tree).  In other areas, trees have been dropped in neat rows by powerline crews when they replaced utility poles and power and phone lines.

Then, on July 16, the area was fanned by dry air and high winds, and within hours the fire had spread into the nearby forest.  By the next morning, smoke from the fire had created a massive and ominous mushroom cloud.  The fire rapidly swept down the dry slopes of the eastern Sierras to the Carson River, and to the town of Markleeville.

Looking across the canyon from the road up to Grover Hot Springs, the top of the ridge has been entirely burned.  Likewise, the ridge behind was also burned.  Only the canyon was saved.  Part of what allowed a defense of the area is a large meadow, originally cleared for cattle, on the other side of the creek.

Somehow, firefighters managed to save the town, most of the surrounding homes, and the nearby Grover Hot Springs resort in an epic, two-day battle where firefighters drove their trucks literally through flames as the fire crossed California Route 89.

Markleeville, Population 210… The bottom of the sign has been burned.  The forest behind and on both sides of the road into town have been entirely burned. Only the forest past the sign remains. Much of the raw news videographer footage in the link above was shot about a mile back up the road.

Eventually, a broad front moved eastward and crossed the state line into Nevada. Descending the eastern Sierra slopes, it shut down the region’s main north-south route, the two-lane, “US Highway 395”, while threatening the town of Topaz Lake and the rural communities to the north.

The forests around Markleeville are thoroughly burned. Though the fire here would have burned downslope, it is entirely scorched from the ground up. I have no idea how firefighters managed to save the town.

The fire continued burning into the Pine Nut Mountains of Nevada where it was eventually stopped by a combination of firefighting efforts, reaching the edge of a previous burn, and finally a downpour from a thunderstorm not unlike the one that had started the fire.  By September 16, the Tamarack Fire had traveled more than 20-miles and burned through almost 67,000 acres.

Utility crews are still working in the area. While most power and phone infrastructure has been repaired, cellular and relay towers are still undergoing maintenance. While I did have cell-phone coverage, I saw a symbol on my phone that I’d never seen before, with a message that service was available only for emergency calls.

From a vantage point north of Markleeville, burned forest is all that’s visible for as far as one can see through the smoke settling from the still smoldering landscape. Along areas of private property, timber surveyors were painting white numbers onto trees in preparation for salvage logging. How much of this will grow back is difficult to say, as burns dating back to the 1950s are still visible as only sparsely revegetated areas today.

Just beyond the edge of the burn, the forests are settling into autumn. In the end, nature doesn’t seem to much care about such matters. Fire is among the phenomena that shaped this region from times long before humans gave it a label.