We Got Out At Just the Right Time- A Boomer Story

I began my career in Jan. of 1983. As luck would have it, I would spend nearly all of my law enforcement years in small town America. I didn't really plan it that way nor did I particularly like it at first- that's just the way it worked out for me. There were a few bumps, I tried to get out once, but as fate would have it- I would spend the better part of 25 years in small town America. They were good years mostly- until the end.

My generation, the boomers, had one foot in the lives of the Greatest Generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation and the other foot in the lives of Gen Y and the Millennials. When I contrast those three generations, I am struck with awe. Only about 75 years separates those generations and yet they seemingly have very little in common. The Greatest Generation in a way- sold Gen X, Gen Y, and the Millennials out. I'm not sure the new kids have figured that out yet.

You see, old rich people run this place. That's how it has always been. People like Warren Buffet are the new plantation owners. And their job, indeed their self worth, is measured by how much they can exploit others and make even more wealth while pretending simultaneously- that they are great humanitarians.

The Greatest Generation were my teachers, people older than me, who had lived through or been influenced by the Great Depression. Most had very little, so they were frugal. I do not use the word cheap because they understood the cost and value of buying quality merchandise. Quality goods were made in America. We made the best houses, the best cars, the best motorcycles, the best guns, the best can openers. Americans made them. When we saw "Made in Japan" on a product we put it back on the shelf. Back then the government tended to side with the working stiffs and they told the truth about most things I think and if they didn't- our citizens were quick to forgive them because everyone knew they were on our side. The Greatest Generation supported government- not because they were stupid or gullible but because they believed our government was the best there was and it represented our values.

The children of the Greatest Generation were the Boomers. We were taught our work ethic from the Great Generation. We showed up on time, we fought for unions and benefits and got them, and we worked hard. What changed in our lifetimes was government. Government became crooked and unresponsive. With the death of JFK, the Vietnam War ratcheted up, and we found ourselves fighting some war that nobody really cared about. By 1971, Nixon had closed the gold window and forever ruined our currency's gold standard. By 1973, Nixon was caught in a bungled burglary of Democratic Headquarters during the 1972 elections. We were held hostage, watching Watergate proceedings on television like the Watergate burglary was the crime of the century. People lied under oath, Nixon failed to produce a segment of tape, and the whole thing seemed like some shameful charade. Eventually Nixon resigned and went away. The boomers were entering the workforce enmasse' and were starting to work through the ranks.

We had a number of other shocks, mostly economic, and the failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter which ended in 1980. I have always thought Jimmy Carter was just too nice of a man to be President.

The 80's brought about Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics, the best music ever, and a stock market bull which arguably lasted more or less through 2007. That bull market spanned 25 years- the start and the end of my working life- almost to the very month.

At the end of my career, I was hiring the members of Gen Y. They were latch key kids. Kids from broken households- the kind Reagan warned us about. Their education, their knowledge of our history and of our government was poor. They were apathetic. They didn't just distrust government, they avoided the subject altogether. They seemed to care more about computers, video games, and cell phones than actually doing something physically constructive. Like every generation, they were self absorbed and thought they were smarter than those who preceded them. I think that is a thread of commonality that we all share.

I got out of the workforce in 2007 at the ripe old age of 46. I knew the markets were about to crater at that time so I adjusted everything I had- pulled it out of equities and beat the rush into bonds that occurred in 2008. I had just enough dough set aside to make it to age 50- when I would start getting retirement checks.

I was able to do that because I paid attention to history. That's it. I have always relied on history to tell me what to do next.

After the crash of '08, worker salaries and benefits were destroyed. Production and manufacturing jobs were lost to NAFTA, Mexico, and the Pacific Rim. Government has never been worse- our leaders are nothing but pathological liars- following some unwritten historical script that must take place before the fall of our Republic. Wall Street bankers own our government now- they are part of the script. They most certainly will bring about the final collapse.

Indeed, in my short life, I have seen the Greatest Generation and I just don't think they were that great. One day there will be a calamity of such magnitude and duration that it will most certainly spawn a new sense of what is important and what is not. That's how I think these things reset.

Gen X, Gen Y, and the Millennials have inherited a mess. It will not matter who was responsible for it. The only thing that will matter will be whether or not these generations are capable of diagnosing all of the problems that this country has contracted and whether or not they can plot a course for recovery. Unfortunately, they do not have history on their side. I cannot think of one time in history, when a deeply diminished and bankrupt society realized what was happening to them, stopped it, and plotted a course for recovery that didn't involve war.

Our entire culture has changed. I look at the the young kids now days and I can't believe they are still working for the same shitty wages we have always seen without benefits. Wages haven't really moved up in 30 years. Those that do manage to get a leg up are increasingly exploited. My gal has made the leap to restaurant manager only to find herself working 60-70 hour weeks with non stop texts and phone calls during her "non working" hours. All that for a measly 50k and benefits. It all works out to about 18 bucks an hour because if a company wants to avoid paying overtime, they simply make you a manager and get around it.

I often watch her race off to work for another 12 hour day, every day, 5 or 6 days a week. This upcoming week, she has no days off. Work is like a war zone for her and she returns home exhausted. How long can people endure this? I don't know. Left with no other choices, human beings can tolerate a lot of misery.

We had it pretty good. All I  had to do was 25 years and out. Just a few eternal days, health and dental insurance,40 hour weeks with overtime and an employer/employee retirement program.

Boomers didn't sign NAFTA or get rid of Glass Steagall. We didn't lever up and exploit every would be homeowner with pick a pay loans that issuers knew would never be repaid and didn't care- because they were going to sell them off anyway while greasing an entire industry to lie about their triple A rating. We didn't steal a few trillion from the treasury either- to keep our hordes of wealth intact.

You see, old rich people run this place. The old, rich people were still in charge 10 years ago. They were in charge of protecting all the wealth they had accumulated, privatizing profits for themselves and socializing losses. They were not ashamed to steal a few trillion from the Treasury in 2008 in order to keep their estates intact- they just had to find the right people to let them get away with it- which they did.

A lot of us, a few of my older boomer friends, we got out at just the right time. I see that all very clearly now.

The Greatest Generation- Tom Brokaw called them that. Surely, it must be true if Tom Brokaw said it. Old, rich people using whatever means they can muster to hang onto their fortunes. People like Warren Buffet, the Koch brothers, Kerkorian. Come to think of it, Brokaw at age 75, is exactly the kind of old, rich guy that runs this place. Why wouldn't you label yourself a member of the Greatest Generation? In the end, it always seems to make sense.

Silver Update, Explaining Bit Gold

After writing my blog on whether or not JP Morgan was trying to corner the silver market, silver rose from 16.40 (May 8) to 17.51 during the week. For the first time in at least a year, silver was actually up yesterday. (Friday) I went ahead and bought some anyway.

Buying silver here is a no brainer for me. Get zero interest on deposits or buy precious metals at rock bottom prices.

Last year, I bought a new, larger safety deposit box. I hate keeping my pm's in a credit union. I don't trust any kind of bankers- period. But the thought of pushing a 700 lb safe into my house and bolting it to the floor has me less than excited.

A few days ago, my uncle referred me to an article at 321 gold on "Bit gold." I read what I could about bit gold there and a few other places- and I love the idea. It is simply banking, with worldwide capabilities in any currency, using gold. I would have signed up for an account this week but alas, US government regulations prohibit it. Imagine that. Here is the link.

http://www.maxkeiser.com/2015/05/bob-moriarty-bitgold-explained/

Here is BitGold's site, company just a few days old! https://www.bitgold.com/

Going to try and put up a new piece on Sunday. Have a great weekend everyone!

Is Too Big To Fail Bank, JP Morgan, Trying to Corner the Silver Market?

For several months and probably years, I have been following the silver market. I buy silver, small quantities, on a fairly regular basis. I always buy on Fridays because the price is always under attack on Fridays. I wish I had a chart of the silver price limited just to Fridays- because that is when precious metals are consistently sold off. It's almost automatic.

At any rate, several weeks ago, I caught an article about JP Morgan buying silver hand over fist. We're talking 9 million ounces in the space of two weeks.

The silver market, in relative dollar terms, is very small. The Hunt brothers tried to corner it in the late 70's but failed- driving the price of silver to 50 bucks an oz in the process. Interestingly enough, the Hunt brothers telegraphed their intentions which allowed a lot of folks to hop onto the bandwagon and drive the price up in the process. I was one of them. The Hunts helped pay for my college and a car.

So what about a giant TBTF banker- with access to billions of relatively cheap FED dollars and leverage to trillions more- what's stopping them from succeeding where the Hunt brothers failed? Especially if they have the means to take delivery of the actual physical metal rather than simply trading paper?

Not much. In fact, with nothing left to invest in- having driven the equity markets to 200% of probable fair value from the lows of Mar. 09- cornering the silver market seems like a no brainer. The price of silver has been so decimated that I doubt silver miners can even turn a profit. I think based on years and years of research- that fair value or break even costs of silver producers has to be around 21.00 dollars an oz.- in a very general sense because silver is often the by-product of other mining operations. Today the price of silver stands just a shade over 17 bucks an oz.

And oddly, in a deflating environment, with silver sales declining and demand at a lull- somebody is buying an absolute mountain of the stuff. http://srsroccoreport.com/why-is-the-u-s-importing-so-much-silver-bullion/why-is-the-u-s-importing-so-much-silver-bullion/

I like this website mainly because the author does not speculate where this vast demand is coming from nor does he speculate where it is going. He sticks pretty much with the data points.

But if I were actively trying to corner the silver market- I'd sure want to try it with very deep pockets at a time when nobody was watching with a very subdued price. Like now.

Here is Ted Butler's take on the situation. This is a fascinating piece. It's a year old but giant positions aren't built overnight without people noticing. http://goldsilverworlds.com/physical-market/jp-morgan-holds-highest-amount-of-physical-silver-in-history/

or this- today at the Silver Doctors...http://www.silverdoctors.com/

Here's something far more recent (May of 2015) I stole from somewhere: (I apologize if it is redundant)

At the time the Hunt brothers were believed to have acquired futures contracts worth one third of total annual global mine supply on leverage. Had they been in a position to meet the margin call if the outcome may have been quite different.

Had they accumulated physical silver rather than paper silver in the form of futures contracts, as JP Morgan are doing, the Hunts would likely have made an absolute fortune.

So, it is interesting to note that legendary silver market analyst Ted Butler has estimated that JP Morgan may currently hold far more than their official figure of 55 million ounces.

Butler believes the true figure to be closer to 350 million ounces. Annual global silver production is 820 million ounces which, if Butler is correct, puts JP Morgan in a position to corner the physical silver market today, unlike the Hunt brothers back in 1980. As this would equate to a holding 42.7% of total annual supply.

JP Morgan has been acquiring this vast hoard of physical silver while holding the largest short position in the silver futures market, i.e. while suppressing the silver price with its unlimited access to free money, according to Butler.

It's hard to escape the fact that if JP Morgan isn't trying to actively corner the silver market- it sure looks like it can. All that might stand in JP Morgan's path are laws which as we have learned- don't really apply to the TBTF banks anyway. They probably have a legal department which has far more savvy and acumen than anything our government can muster.

At any rate, it's kind of nice to be on the right side of a trade for a change. I am just going to go about my business of accumulating silver just like JP Morgan does. Very quietly and mostly on Fridays.

73 Months of Economic Bullshit- I Got You Babe Edition

Every day, since the March lows of '09, I feel trapped in some alternative "Groundhog Day" universe where Cher serenades me each morning with "I Got You Babe."



This is how it goes. I snap on CNBC to check the stock market indices. They are always up. If markets, heaven forbid, fall a little bit- parties unknown rescue them and drive them back up. Indeed, markets haven't doubled since '09, they have tripled.

Have we entered a new gilded age? An industrial renaissance?

Day after day, week after week, month after month, I hear that song. Going on 73 months in a row. I wake up, snap on the television and watch the gum flapping, never ending, equity cheerleaders on CNBC.

The latest installment came this morning.

The BLS reported an increase of 223,000 jobs for the month of April. The market reaction went straight up- 250 DJIA points.

What nobody (MSM) mentioned was the further downward revision to March jobs- another minus 41,000. The jobs added in April were all part time jobs, nearly all were in the 55 years and over segment. In fact, all other age segments declined- as well as full time jobs. When you shred 20,000 full time jobs and parse them into 40,000 part time and benefit-less jobs...VOILA!...the new economy! http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/bingo-bls-pads-employment-report-with-birthdeath-plug-spx-melts-up/

or this, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-08/old-workers-hit-new-all-time-high-all-april-jobs-go-55-and-older

or my very best proof that the BLS numbers are complete bullshit is that 93 million working age adults are not employed. A whopping 93.1 million or about 30% of Americans don't have a job! http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-08/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-93194000

The problem of course with all that bullshit flying around is- the lack of corroboration. The fundamentals, things like tax receipts, housing and new loans, consumer loans, inflation or rising lumber prices- none of those things are happening because....

The political narrative is complete and utter bullshit. This economy, stripped of the trillions added by quantitative (QE) easing, treasury buying, and the years of Zero Interest Rates (ZIRP) can't get going. All that excess fluidity flowed straight into the stock market looking for returns. Working stiffs, the middle class, have been getting sodomized first by bankers who created the housing bubble and destroyed home owner equity, then by politicians sticking Obamacare up our tail pipes.

Obamacare is a tax. It is not health insurance. I lost an additional 400 bucks this year (my "shared responsibility" penalty) because I simply refuse to spend 8 thousand dollars a year for nothing. (500 a mo., and a 2k deductible) Between Obamacare, my federal, state, and local taxes- I would lose 16 thousand or 40% of my income!

I worked 7 hours this week. I worked 12 hours last week. Thank gawd for my retirement. My office created 3 "jobs" after getting rid of one full time worker with benefits. Jobs like mine. My company kept all of the benefit costs- and created 3 jobs to replace the fired full time guy. That is a very small but accurate representative picture of the new American workplace.

Our way of life is not coming back either. Structurally we're screwed. There is simply no way of bringing back those millions of jobs that our politicians allowed corporate America to offshore. This is as good as it gets.

I think all of this economic bullshit can go on for awhile longer too. I keep reading and hearing from people that think this charade will end soon- the latest call is for sometime during the fall of this year. I think a lot of that is wishful thinking and historically based- in part anyway- on the last year of a Presidents's term.

That broken record keeps playing but I'm still not getting used to the tune.

Cornered? Try This Winning Move

Many years ago as a mid level police manager in a small police agency, we had an employee become disgruntled over a promotion and subsequent to that- he turned into a general pain in the ass. He started to act outside of policy, refusing to wear assigned attire, refusing to park in assigned areas, re-arranging the schedule to suit himself- all of those little things that angry employees do when they don't get what they want.

Each of those things in and of themselves were small potatoes. However in the policing business, particularly at the mid management level and above, you have to hold employees to some sort of standard. In other words, if you allow one employee to break the rules- you are probably going to have other employees break those same rules. You also face the risk of not being able to enforce those rules later on when you have failed to enforce them initially. So you enforce the rules of conduct or face varying levels of employee anarchy.

It was the enforcement of those policies with that individual that caused me to observe something that I have never forgotten.

I found myself confronting this individual about his behavior on several occasions. Rather than comply with my requests- he became even more hostile and argumentative each time we spoke. Thus began the long and arduous process of verbal warnings, written warnings, confrontations, and our first meeting with the Chief. It was during that meeting when this employee presented a defense which I have now noted has become the national defense whenever anyone, particularly high ranking members of society, are accused of poor behavior or misconduct.

Blame your accusers. It works.

During our initial meeting with the Chief, our disgruntled employee was quite successful in convincing the Chief that his misconduct was not only a result of my poor management skills but that I was making things up and exaggerating. I remember sitting in that meeting, aghast at what I was hearing. The Chief was nodding his head in agreement and our disgruntled employee was blaming everything, but mostly me, for all of his problems. Our disgruntled employee left that meeting mostly unscathed that day. I didn't really try to defend myself because I knew virtually all of what he said was untrue. Unfortunately, I hadn't fully documented his poor performance issues as well as I should have. After dissecting what happened in that meeting that day- I learned a valuable lesson.

People, when cornered by poor performance, are capable of putting together any number of defenses. Depending on what they have done and what the stakes or punishment might be (the eventual outcome) people will take what ever action they feel is necessary to protect themselves or their careers. This is hardly earth shattering news.

Which brings me to the modus operandi of the day tuned to perfection by one...

Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of a sociopath. Hell bent on becoming this nation's first female President- Hillary Clinton knows no shame. Every scandal from Whitewater, the cattle futures bribe, Travelgate and Vince Foster, Benghazi, multi- million dollar bribes (the Clinton Foundation) from foreign sources, wiped email servers and obstruction of justice, tax evasion- Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of everything that is wrong in America. Instead of feeling some small amount of shame, she simply soldiers on acting as though she is as pure as the driven snow.

What method does Hillary Clinton and her supporters use to escape judgement? You guessed it. They blame their accusers. It's always a witch hunt by opposing politicos. The real sinister people are actually the ones that are accusing Hillary of all of that unsubstantiated misconduct and criminal activity. Hillary is either guilty of a tremendous amount of misconduct or she just has some of the worst luck in the annals of history.

Innocent people do not make up stories about anti Muslim videographers, wipe servers clean, they do not commit tax evasion or accept bribes from foreign sources in return for gawd knows what, but mostly innocent people do not blame their accusers. You know why?

Because innocent people are innocent. They turn over the evidence which proves they are innocent. That's what truth telling people do. They don't make excuses or blame people making an inquiry into their conduct.

It's funny how simple things really are. Human conduct never changes all that much. It's an old trick, this idea that we will just blame our accusers every time we get challenged about our poor performance. I've seen it in action- I am not the least bit surprised to see Hillary and her supporters use this tactic every time her feet get held to the fire. It seems to work.

Next time you get caught doing something wrong- just blame your accusers. Never accept responsibility for anything. It's a winning move.

In the Shadows of Headframes

Some 45 years have come and gone and I am still here. I never wanted to leave this place. Children in my day and age- didn't have much say in matters like that. My mother and father did not run a democracy.

In the summer of 1969, while descending down the western slope of the Continental Divide, I got my first glimpse of Butte, Montana. I was 8 years old. It was love at first sight.

That's why I am here and that's why I keep coming back.

I can't really describe the immense feeling of hope we had as a family that summer. The excitement was tangible- like great things were about to happen. This feeling I think, is reserved for the young and adventurous. It is something that has only made brief appearances in my life and now at age 54, most of my adventures and opportunities are behind me. I don't think I'll ever feel the same excitement that I felt in the summer of '69.

We moved into a place near the top of Caledonia Street, just west of Excelsior St. I could hear the sounds of one or two headframes in the distance. These were giant, black iron monoliths that used cables to hoist ore laden rock and miners in and out of underground shafts. The headframes made  a strange "whirring" noise- caused mostly I think- by spooling cable. At first the sounds of the head frames and their occasional creakiness seemed scary and foreboding. Eventually I got used to the noise. Those noises weren't going to last much longer anyway. The days of underground mining were coming to a close- new operations were moving above ground and into the Berkeley Pit which had already swallowed up a large portion of Butte. 

Today, many of the headframes have been taken down. At one point, there were nearly 100 of them dotting the landscape. Now they have dwindled down to 11 or 12. I pray they don't remove any more. I still wince every time there is a fire or some old and historic building collapses. 

As a child, I viewed our residence as nothing more than a base camp. Everyday, I walked all over Butte. I remember every lot we played ball on, the tree I jumped out of which sent a nail through my foot, the path we took over the railroad tracks and across Western Av. on sleds in the winter time. I remember my friends' houses. I remember the fence I was straddling when some older girl gave me a hickey and my parents nearly had a heart attack when they saw it. I remember hitting my first (of only two) home runs on a field now named after my coach. (Scown field) I remember another field nearby where two of my friends got beaten up and pretty badly- by a neighborhood gang. It seemed like something was always happening in Butte. The bars were busy around the clock. Drunken miners everywhere. 

I come back to Butte much like a pilgrimmage, 2 or 3 times a year. I've been doing this for decades. Very often I come by myself. I eat pork chop sandwiches, pasties, donuts from the Town Talk bakery. I can spell and pronounce povitica and I love it. I stay at the Finlen Hotel. I can't even imagine staying in one of those boxlike, chain hotels down on the flats. The same employees have worked here at the Finlen for decades. I like them. The coffee is the same. The hotel is the same. The only thing that has changed over the years is some remodeling, mostly plumbing, in the rooms- and the elevators have been updated. They used to have push knobs on them which were very old and unique.

After a couple of years living uptown, we moved down to the flats. So the whole extended city of Butte became my playground. 

I learned to camp, to hunt, and to fish in Butte. I learned to play baseball, basketball, football, and golf. I rode motorcycles. I landed my first job here. I chewed tobacco, I drank a little, and I swore a lot. I learned that while all of those things can be bad- they weren't the end of the world. It was part of the living process wherein you discovered- who you are and who you might one day become. Most of us start making those choices when we are young. I think that happened to me in Butte. 

In the summer of 1975, we moved away. The mine was shutting down and with it- the entire economy of Butte. You were forced to become one of two types of people. You either left looking for opportunities- or you stayed knowing that the economy and your livelihood weren't likely to get better any time soon. I admire the people who stayed. Our family left for Missoula and then on to Idaho. 

So what is it about this place that keeps me coming back? What is it about Butte that cements the people that once lived here with the people who stayed behind? What common experience do we all share that has us fondly remembering Butte while so many others, outsiders mostly, seek to detract and diminish all things Butte? 

For one hundred years, Butte was the American dream. Butte was a place of opportunity. This was a place where people from all over the world could come, scratch out a hard living, and live the American dream. It was also a place of great struggle. A place where the rich and elite took full advantage of laborers as a disposable class of people. This was the site of the gibralter of unionism. This is where workers came together and fought side by side for a decent wage with decent hours and a few safety enhancements while the Anaconda Company tried to sabotage those efforts for the sake of greed. There were clashes, strikes, murders, great tragedies, oppression. People and workers rallied. They could distinguish who was good and who was not- even across ethnic boundaries. People took care of each other and they supported each other. Despite all of the adversity, people here were grateful for what they had. Thousands of people died in these mines. The people of Butte have this common thread, this mutual history of shared sacrifice, these memories, and they haven't forgotten. It's like spending time in a foxhole and surviving the ordeal. Those are the ties that bind and you don't forget who was in the foxhole with you.

Historically speaking, Butte played a huge role in shaping America. Stock manipulations, claim jumping and bribing judges, the formation of unions, even a crooked copper king helped shape the fundamental way we elect U.S. Senators. In many respects, the history of Butte is the history of immigration and America. 

I didn't even mention Evel Kneivel.  

That's why I love it here. I stare at copper king mansions and decaying architecture. I wander about the remaining headframes- the Original, the Steward, Mountain Con, Anselmo, Orphan Girl. I go to the Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine memorial where 168 miners died in 1917 just 6 weeks before the arrival of union organizer, Frank Little. Frank was abducted out of a rooming house, dragged behind a car on Anaconda Road and hanged on a train trestle west of town by Anaconda company hit men. Sometimes I go to the two old cemeteries in Butte or up to the mining museum past the statue of the good copper king, the Irish entrepreneur and miner himself, Marcus Daly.

This picture was taken before the statue was moved to Montana Tech

History happened here. There is no other place like this anywhere and you can damn sure bet there will never be another place like it-ever again.

Here's a goofy video taken by two guys traveling thru Butte. It's fairly recent and it will give you a decent look at a small slice of Butte. At the 4:57 mark, they are passing the Finlen Hotel (and the Cavalier Lounge) on Broadway at Wyoming.



  

      

This Ain't Andy's Mayberry, or....Is This Really the Best We Can Do?

The police have never been popular and from the looks of things, it is certainly not getting any better.

As a young man, I had a couple of run ins with the police. Those incidents went about the way I expected. What I never expected nor experienced was a sense of hatred for the police who were simply doing their jobs. I never received a ticket that I didn't deserve. I was once detained and fingerprinted but I never held the police responsible for that grand theft or the humiliation of leaving high school in handcuffs. There is a great deal of inherent power in knowing that not only are you innocent of a crime- but that you actually know who was responsible for the act. I chose not to tell the police who did it- I might have been a little more cooperative had they acted a little more decently. Oddly, I think those cops thought I was guilty up until they found out that I had an iron clad alibi. I threw freight all night long on a grocery store freight crew the night of that theft. My whereabouts were completely accounted for- something they didn't know when they dragged me out of school. So who fingered me for this crime? A city employee that I had been at odds with for a long time. I think that was my first taste of how self centered, devious, and conniving people can be. Suing the police never even entered my mind. As a teenager, I associated with more than my share of sick and twisted folks. I was certainly no saint but I didn't run around fingering people for crimes, making shit up, nor did I blame the cops for my poor decisions. As stupid as I was- I still had a sense of responsibility which I thank gawd- came about because my parents did not run around like victims blaming other people.

I shifted gears out of liberal arts and into law enforcement during my third year in college. I still had some personal issues of my own to deal with. I was far from perfect but I believed in the law enforcement mission and I graduated thinking that I'd have an opportunity to help people.

Looking back, I simply underestimated how completely incapable our culture is when it comes to taking responsibility for their actions. They just can't do it. It is an epidemic. That was the last thing I said to the local reporters when I retired in 2007. People just cannot accept the consequences for their poor decisions and they will go to great lengths to blame anyone or anything, desperately trying to rationalize their actions while criticizing the actions of others.

That includes bad cops and sometimes- bad prosecutors. If you think bad cops go unpunished- you should see the shit prosecutors get away with. You don't hear much about those crooked bastards because shit always runs downhill and prosecutors sit at the top of those hills. How else does Hillary Clinton get away with committing perjury and obstruction over Benghazi? How about shaking down foreign leaders while using her position as Secretary of State to pick up a few million here or there. The implication being that if Hillary were to win the Presidency- those donors will want something in return for all of that money deposited in the Clinton Foundation- which is just a fancy name for their own personal slush fund.

Hillary gets away with all of that because prosecutors practice something worse than cops. They practice cowardice, indifference, and criminal complicity as they fail to uphold the laws that they swore to uphold. Cops may screw up but they often pay dearly when they do and if not-it's not for a lack of scrutiny. Prosecutors don't. They are some of the most cowardly pussies on the planet and they behave like courtroom bullies. Rarely are they held accountable- one glance at Eric Holder's history tells that story.

But the helicopters don't hover over prosecutors and court rooms. Cameras, installed on every cellphone in America, are capturing cops in action. And it's not good. Last week I stared in awe as California cops literally kicked the shit out of an unarmed pursuit suspect- an incident captured from a helicopter.

What is wrong?

Potential cops are subjected to polygraphs, monstrously long psychological tests and department shrinks, drug tests, oral boards, physical tests, background examinations, and every other inquiry that anyone can think of. If background investigators could remove the brains of potential cops- they'd try it- all in some misguided effort to avoid hiring cops who get the police brass and politicians in trouble. Like that cop in South Carolina who executed a motorist. The criminal intent was clear. That officer is a murderer who might have gotten away with it if not for a piece of video captured by a witness. Absent that video- you can bet money that the uncorroborated testimony of that witness would have been ignored, discredited, and marginalized out of existence.

Which takes me back to those evil little bastards of my youth. The ones who stole a golf cart one night, destroyed it, blamed it on me, and laughed as I left the school that morning in handcuffs. Some people are just evil and malignant, criminal. Others are a product of their environment- I know this because it happened to me over the course of 25 years.

You can't subject people (cops) to a never ending diet of vitriol, assholes, and hatred and expect them to behave like Andy Griffith in Mayberry. You can't lie to people, obstruct them, call them pigs, spit at them, attack everything theydo without consequence. Serve cops, or anybody for that matter, a steady diet of vitriol and pretty soon, you have cops that are assholes. They lash out, become depressed, develop health problems, get divorced, become alcoholic, and then one day- they snap. I don't say this with any intent other than to explain what happens. I give no excuse or quarter to criminals who cross the line- badge or no badge.

You don't want the mentally ill in charge of policing the mentally ill.

I snapped one night, years ago in the late '90's. I was in a bar taking a theft report and a drunken asshole with a pool cue decided to start a hog calling session. It might have been cute a couple of times- but by about the 15th time he yelled "SOOOey" at the tops of his lungs, I snapped. I walked over to him and asked if he'd like to step outside the bar. He refused. And that's when I whispered to him, "One more SOOOey asshole and you'll leave this place on your head." I didn't want to start a bar riot and my ploy worked. I can't tell you how the hog calling champion would have fared- as I exited a hostile environment with him in tow.

The boss took me off nights. But 17 years worth of swing shifts had taken their toll on me. I never really recovered. I became Chief a year later- but you just can't just shower the stench of 17 years worth of assholes off and get happy again- try as hard as I could. It's some sort of process that I never fully grasped. I do know people in the business who retire with good attitudes and who exit the business relatively sane. Those folks still mystify me. I think had I had access to a good psychologist I might have been salvageable. As it stood, I got my divorce, quit my job, and had the courage to get sober. It took me the better part of five years to get my life back.

There will always be a few homicidal maniacs who slip through the cracks. I busted one once- a cop who had executed a drug dealer by shooting him in the back of the head. As I write this, I remember waiting on a homicide arrest warrant which had not arrived and explaining to this guy that we were arresting him for failure to display a front license plate after we detained him on a traffic stop. I remember him looking at us with this incredulous look- and asking us why we were arresting him for such a chicken shit offense. At the jail- when we handed him a copy of the First Degree Murder warrant- it suddenly became crystal clear to him. This guy, a California cop, had actually been hired by one of our local police agencies but hadn't started yet.

I think we are on the verge of some sort of police renaissance. Body cameras are coming for everyone. That's a given. I'd like to go one step further.

I'd like to see all cops given access to mental health professionals. I'd like to see police brass, councils, and citizens support the idea that just like war veterans- our police officers are combat weary. They simply cannot be subjected to years of ritualized abuse and then be expected to behave like Mother Theresa or Ghandi. If police officers had the ability to diagnose what's wrong with them- they would have done it long ago. That's not to say that they aren't responsible for their actions- they most certainly are- but that's not gonna help some guy avoid a future beating nor is it going to save millions of taxpayer dollars lost in defense or judgments on just one of these claims.

I have never met a cop anywhere who told me that he wanted the opportunity to become jaded, cynical, and depressed and then take it out on some bad guy. I don't think that's anybody's plan. But it keeps turning out that way. I don't see it getting any better either. We need to do a better job of identifying depressed, alcoholic, and angry personnel and giving them a fighting chance before they start kicking the shit out of some poor guy in the desert. We do it for military personnel, are cops really that different? No...except that unlike a two or three year military tour of duty for military personnel complete with PTSD counseling- cops do what they do for 25 or 30 years without any kind of counseling or support. Or...

We can just keep denying that there is a problem. We can continue blaming police agencies for limiting their hiring practices to mean, jaded, and cynical people prone to depression and beating up people. That's the way the public sees it- and that's the way it is starting to look. I don't see this getting any better any time soon.

Cops beating people.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/10-california-deputies-leave-video-alleged-horseback-suspect/story?id=30223280