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I took Introduction to Macroeconomics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst over 25 years ago. More importantly, the class was offered at 8AM. That meant that I slept through most of the lectures. So I was more than a little nervous that I may have made some embarrassing errors in yesterday's blog. I asked a friend of mine who is a professor of economics at a major university to read the posting and let me know if I had gotten it right. Turns out I did. I guess somnambulistic learning actually works.

 His message, in addition to confirming my analysis, added some valuable insights. Though he has asked to remain anonymous, he has given me permission to publish his reply here. It follows:
[Your blog entry] is well written and economically sound. Your discussion of the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is exactly on point. Of course, it is not the preferred option to raise taxes in a deep recession; ideally, we want all citizens to spend more money to get things moving again. But we also have public debts to pay, and we might even want to tax one group to redistribute to another (i.e., taxing a group with low MPC to redistribute to a group with higher MPC). If our fiscal health were otherwise robust, however, it would have been reasonable to extend the Bush tax cuts for another year or two. 

But our fiscal health is anything but robust. We have a large structural deficit at the moment, in substantial part (but not entirely) due to the Bush tax cuts, enacted as we commenced a full decade of war. Even with the economy going full bore, current tax rates are not sufficiently high to cover government obligations. 

Surely our successful friends, who no doubt made their money in business, understand that a business cannot continue to run negative balance sheets forever; eventually it will feel the icy fingers of the invisible hand clutching at its throat. Why don't these individuals want to apply similar logic to government spending? Sure, the U.S. Government won't go out of business. But some years from now, it will be forced to pay off its debt by heavily taxing younger workers, slashing promised benefits, and/or running high rates of inflation to reduce its real debt. All of these are less palatable and more painful than raising taxes a bit now on citizens with low MPC and low marginal utility of income. 

Editorially speaking, my strong impression is that the key political advocates for cutting taxes (e.g., House and Senate Republicans and the think tanks that supply their talking points) understand all of the above; they don't for the most part genuinely believe that cutting taxes for top earners raises net tax revenue or greatly stimulates the economy. Their goal, rather, is to keep the government in a perpetual state of deficit so that it's almost impossible to expand the scope of government. This is the so called "starve the beast" strategy. Well-meaning people can certainly have a principled argument about whether the government is too big, too small, or just the right size. But using disingenuous arguments that “taxing the rich hurts all of us” to keep the beast in a perpetual state of starvation is not a principled way to have this discussion. 
[Postscript: My concept about encouraging people to donate their tax breaks did not catch on.  The site I created is gone. Sigh.]

 Last night I had dinner at a fantastic restaurant with two wonderful friends, whom I will call Dick and Jane. The launching of my new website, DonateYourTaxBreak, was very much on my mind, so of course I brought it up. Dick is a very smart guy, so I wanted his feedback. But he is also an anti-tax libertarian, going so far as to say that he has more in common with the Tea Party than with Democrats. When I told him about the website and my ideas for it, he said, "During a recession is exactly the wrong time to increase taxes on the people who create jobs in this country." He waved his hand, taking in the entire restaurant, saying, "look at all the people we are employing: everyone in the kitchen, the wait staff, the farmers who grow the food, the truckers who ship it here, and on and on." The point of the evening was to have a terrific meal and enjoy each other's company, so we agreed to drop the subject and move on to other things.

He's right of course. Wealthy people do create jobs. But he's only correct to a point. Yes, we spent money hand over fist at that restaurant, which no doubt benefited the local economy. But later in the conversation, Dick and Jane regaled me with their plans for a vacation they will take later in the year - traveling through Europe, Russia, and Asia. Do I believe that Dick and Jane deserve the wealth they have accumulated? Absolutely! Do I believe that they have worked hard, risked much, invested wisely, scrimped and saved, and benefited the economy throughout their lives by their actions and their taxpaying? Without a doubt! Do I believe that they deserve the right to spend that money on a fine dinner, or a vacation spent in far-flung parts of the world? Again, I say yes, and yes.

But did Dick and Jane need to have the Bush tax cuts extended in order to eat at that restaurant? No. Were they waiting to plan their trip until they knew the fate of the tax bill? No, they've been planning this trip for months. Did the passage of the tax bill impact their travel plans in anyway? None that I'm aware of. Without the tax cut, would they have needed to choose between a fine dinner and a vacation? Not at all. Will their trip through Europe, Russia, and Asia, benefit the American economy or American workers in any way? Almost not at all. Dick and Jane's favorite airline is British Airways. So the only benefit that will accrue to this nation from their travels are a few fees paid by British Airways to domestic airports for takeoff and landing privileges, a taxi ride to and from the airport, and perhaps a coffee or a doughnut while waiting for their flight to depart.

How will Dick and Jane use their tax savings? I don't know. But I can tell you what I would have done with my tax savings had I not pledged it to charity. I would have done the same thing in 2011 that I have done for the past ten years. I would've put it in my bank’s “high yield” savings account, currently earning a whopping 0.5%. What would my bank have done with it? I don't know. Maybe they would have lent it to people wanting to purchase homes. Maybe they would have lent it to small businesses wanting to expand. Or maybe they would have used it to purchase larger and larger holdings in Chinese banks, as Bank of America did with a healthy chunk of the billions it received from the TARP program.

My money wouldn't have sat at the bank earning a measly 0.5% forever. When time allowed I would have surveyed the world of investments available to me and moved a portion of my cash into something with better prospects. I can't say what exactly, but I keep my money in a highly diversified portfolio. Since I'm being so honest, possibly more honest than I should, I will tell you that my money is invested in a combination of domestic stocks and bonds, foreign stocks and bonds, precious metals (held both here and abroad), and foreign currencies. Money saved from paying my taxes would no doubt have been split among those various groups of investments, though the advisers I listen to most often are currently bearish on the US dollar, so it's likely that I would overweight the placement of that money into foreign stocks, bonds and currencies, benefiting the United States not at all. Therein lays the problem.

You may be surprised to know that it is a problem that economists have studied, analyzed, debated, written about, and taught to students for a long, long, time. It's nothing new. It's not remarkable. Yet our politicians and our media act as though this whole body of economic theory doesn't exist. Economists speak of "the multiplier process,” and the “velocity of money." There are some rather technical discussions of these subjects on Wikipedia. You can also read about it on a variety of other websites, and in virtually any book on introductory macroeconomics. [OK, all you economists out there – please don’t jump all over me. I am intentionally oversimplifying to get a point across. I am not teaching freshman Macro 101.] The basic idea is this: if you give one dollar to a man who has no money, he will immediately run out and spend it. He will buy food, he will buy clothing, he will buy shelter, and yes, he might buy alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. Regardless, he will spend it ASAP. Economists would say that his “marginal propensity to consume” is high. Moreover, he will spend locally. In fact, he will spend it very, very, locally. The money will go to a local grocer, food purveyor, clothing store, landlord, etc. These local business are likely to turn around and spend that dollar very quickly and very locally too. They will buy provisions from their local suppliers; they will pay employees; and so forth. Those suppliers having been paid will purchase more supplies from their sources. The employees will spend their pay checks, quickly and locally, on, you guessed it, food, clothing, and shelter. On and on, the money will circulate at high velocity among those with a high marginal propensity to consume. Eventually the velocity will slow down. Bits and pieces of that dollar will go to pay foreign suppliers or investors, or will end up in the hands of those with a low marginal propensity to consume, amongst them banks and wealthy investors that own local businesses (directly or indirectly,) who won't rush to re-invest it or spend it.

It is this multiplier process that is such a problem in times of inflation. When there is inflation we want to decrease the money supply, so that there is less money "chasing" the same quantity of goods. When money is “multiplied” by circulating at high velocity, it has the same impact as increasing the money supply - it drives up prices, making inflationary conditions worse. But in a recession, you want people spending money. After 9/11, George W. Bush told us that it was our patriotic duty to go out and spend. We have all heard time and time again that it is the consumer that created the prosperity of the 90’s, and it is consumer spending that will lift us out of our current economic doldrums. So why is it that smart people like my friends Dick and Jane, and most of the Republicans in Congress [yes, though it may not always seem that way, most of them are in fact intelligent people,] are so hell-bent on giving money to those least likely to spend it, instead of people who will spend it as fast as possible and as locally as possible?

Of course I know the answer. Politics. Congressional Republicans’ constituents are wealthy. These Senators and Representatives believe that the only way to retain their jobs is to buy the votes and support of their constituents. Somehow it does not occur to them that we are not stupid, callous, and egocentric. They do not see that we are not motivated solely by greed. They do not understand that we value our brothers and sisters. They cannot conceive that we cherish a strong country - a country with a strong economy; a country with well-educated citizens; a country with healthy citizens; a country with happy citizens; a country united by common ideals and goals, rather than a country divided by mistrust and greed and hatred, need and desire and pain.

I have never met any Senator, Governor, or President of the United States, either past or current. I don't know how to get this message to them except by standing up, holding up my hand, and saying "Look! Look over here! Look at me! I don't want this! I don't want what you're doing! I don't want what you're doing in my name!" If I stand up, throwing my hands in the air, jumping up and down all alone, at best they will look at me and laugh. But what if we all stand up? What if we all raise our hands, and say, "No. This isn't acceptable. This isn't acceptable at all. This isn’t acceptable in my name. This isn’t acceptable in our names?" If we all stand up, if we all raise our hands, if we all demand to be counted, maybe we can return to caring, and kindness, and can sleep at night knowing that our good fortune is not someone else’s misfortune.

Amen.
[Postscript: My concept about encouraging people to donate their tax breaks did not catch on.  The site I created is gone. Sigh.]

It is embarrassing to have so much at a time when so many have so little. But it is doubly embarrassing to have representatives whom I did not choose, and whom I do not like, fight vigorously for my right to have even more, leaving those at the bottom ever more impoverished.

I watched in horror as the tax cut extension bill was debated last month. The "jewel" of the tax package was retention of 35% as the top tax bracket, temporarily suspending it from returning to its prior 39.5%. In the process of winning this 4.5% break on income over a quarter of a million dollars, the Republicans embarrassed themselves, and they embarrassed those of us who have been fortunate enough, industrious enough, and thrifty enough to become wealthy. In addition, they have exacerbated the looming debt which threatens the economic recovery and long-term economic stability of this country.

More than anything it was the vigor with which they pursued this goal that left me so disturbed. The Republican’s rhetoric suggested that if the wealthy in America were to kitty up 4.5% of their incomes over a quarter of a million dollars the nation would grind to a halt; rivers would flow backwards; cows would stop giving milk; the ghosts of Marx and Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin would rise from their graves and descend upon these United States plunging our nation into a new dark ages. Meanwhile as they so pontificated, children in this very nation went to sleep hungry and young men and women lost their lives in foreign wars while committing ordered atrocities in the name of our morality and our way of life.

I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand it any longer. A friend of mine recently said to me "if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem." I remember at the time I told her, "Don’t be ridiculous." But here I am, unable to be idle, as Republicans in Congress put words in my mouth, claiming that I am so callous and so greedy, that without 4.5% of my income above a quarter of a million dollars I would curl up, shrivel up, and blow away.

I have today launched a new website: DonateYourTaxBreak a site whose intention is to publicly declare that those of us who have been most fortunate, do truly care about those who are least fortunate. It is barely up and running, just a shell of what I hope to create. I hope you will take a moment to look at the site and let me know what you think. More importantly I hope you'll return later when it is up and running, and if you are among the fortunate few in this country, that you will join me in pledging your unnecessary, unrequested, and undesired tax break to charities benefiting this great nation’s poor and underprivileged.
At the most recent Key West Literary Seminar there was a panel of cookbook writers who spoke about their process in writing cookbooks. At the end there was a question-and-answer period during which I asked if they thought about who their reader was and what they expected that their reader knew. To frame my question I referred back to Apicius (the world's earliest cookbook) in which many of the recipes consist of nothing but a list of ingredients, others give directions that are very vague. The author of Apicius assumed that the reader would know what to do with those ingredients. Recipes in 19th-century cookbooks would give a set of ingredients and describe the techniques that were significant to that recipe, but would often conclude with something like "cook in the usual way.”

The first person on the panel basically blew off my question. She said that she assumes her reader knows nothing. If I had been in a pushy mood (and if I still had the microphone,) I could have challenged her on that saying, "That's not true at all! You assume that your reader knows quite a bit: You assume that your reader knows how to read! You assume that your reader knows the difference between a pot and pan; that they either own teaspoons and tablespoons, or are at least aware of their relative sizes; that they know what part of a chicken is the "breast" (chickens have breasts???); and so on." In her defense, she had spoken earlier about the great lengths she goes to writing about the recipe, testing her recipes, and providing photographs to make sure the reader understands not only what the recipe should look and taste like, but also what its context is in her culture.

To my great pleasure, Michael Ruhlman, who was on the panel, took up my question saying, "wait, that's an important question." A brief conversation among the panelists did ensue, considering the roles of different kinds of cookbooks aimed at novices versus experts, as well as primers that give the beginner a fundamental set of basic cooking knowledge. One panelist pointed out that in the introduction to Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia states, "stand facing the stove.”

As a culinary historian who spends his time reading old cookbooks, the question of who the reader is, and who the author thought the reader would be, is a vital component of understanding the book. In the earliest days of the publishing of cookbooks it is not clear that the author was writing for someone who was going to cook from the recipes. Those that could read, and those that could afford to purchase books, probably had someone who cooked for them. Those who cooked had neither the ability to read nor access to books. Some of the earliest cookbooks were guides to all domestic tasks, written by a master or gentlemen of the house for his wife or for his head servant. Over time as literacy became more widespread, professional chefs began writing cookbooks for each other. Later still, cookbook authors saw themselves as educators, providing guides for those that they presumed didn't know how to cook it all. Some of the most famous of these books, such as Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, were written by people who instructed at or had started cooking schools – intending the books to be used either by their students or by those not fortunate enough to be able to attend their school.

My favorite piece of text in any cookbook is found in the introduction to the first edition of The Picayune's Creole Cookbook, dated 1901:
Time was when the question of a Creole Cook Book would have been, as far as New Orleans is concerned, as useless an addition to our local literature as it is now a necessity, for the Creole negro cooks of nearly two hundred years ago, carefully instructed and directed by their white Creole mistresses, who received their inheritance of gastronomic lore from France, where the art of good cooking first had birth, faithfully transmitted their knowledge to their progeny… But the civil war (sic), with its vast upheavals of social conditions, wrought great changes in the household economy of New Orleans, as it did throughout the South; here, as elsewhere, she who had ruled as the mistress of yesterday became her own cook of today… the only remedy for this state of things is for the ladies of the present day to do as their grandmothers did, acquaint themselves thoroughly with the art of cooking in all its important and minutest details, and learn how to properly apply them.

I keep returning to this quote because I think it beautifully illustrates the reasons why cookbooks were written, as well as the reasons why cookbooks weren't written. Those that could read didn't cook, and those that cooked didn't read. Further, it shows so clearly the way changes in social structure, and historical events, change this equation. I have significantly edited the above paragraph for brevity. The original betrays significant racism. This too provides an important window into the worldview that created The Picayune's Creole Cook Book.

I appreciate the fact that Michael Ruhlman picked up on the larger meaning of my question, and I love the fact that culinary historians are being accepted as social scientists that can provide a new view into the motivations of the past.
At the 2011 Key West Literary Seminar, David Mas Masumoto did something rather unusual during his talk. He handed out index cards to the audience, asking us to write the following at the top of our card, "I lost my food virginity when…" He then gave us a few minutes to write our story. Afterwards, some people read theirs aloud. Finally, he asked us to trade our cards with the people sitting next to us. It was a very interesting exercise. Here, then, is what I wrote:

It was my mother's birthday. She had made dinner for the family as she always did, but since it was her own birthday she had cooked a particularly special meal. She asked my father to get a bottle of wine from the cellar. This was unusual. Though there were cases of wine in the basement, my parents rarely drank any alcohol at all. They only had wine with dinner once or twice a year. My father went downstairs, returning with a bottle of Château Latour that had been laying there for some 20 or 30 years waiting for a "special occasion." This was to be its day.

There was a wine glass at my place, but when my father tilted the bottle to pour for me I declined because I didn't like wine. My mother said, "No, honey, you really have to try this." But I had never liked the Boone’s Farm, Gallo, or Manischewitz wines that I had tasted, so I refused. "No, no, you must try this," she said. So I accepted a tiny pour and tasted it. And then I understood.


To my great surprise I have found that I love growing tubers. The old standbys such as carrots, onions, garlic, and shallots, as well as ultra-obscure newcomers to the American farm-plot such as Oca (Oxalis tuberosa,) and Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia) aka Bolivian Sunroot. But of all the tubers, my favorite to grow is the "humble" potato.

I could hardly be more surprised than you are. The joy I feel from growing potatoes is remarkable. You take a plot of earth - it needn't be particularly good earth, but it helps if it drains reasonably well and is friable. You make a hole. Into the hole you put what is referred to as a "seed potato" - either a small potato, or a piece cut from a larger potato. Then you cover it over and go away. After some time a few shoots emerge from the ground. The potato plant is a pleasant color of green, but otherwise quite unspectacular. If would be easy to walk past them without a glance. Vaguely vine-like green shoots coming up from the ground, supporting a modest number of leaves of a moderate size. Over time the plant may put on flowers, or maybe not. If it does, they will be insignificant little white flowers with no particular scent. Truly the potato plant is almost completely ignorable.

Then, one day, for no apparent reason the plant will start to wilt. Its leaves turn yellow then brown, but wont necessarily fall from the stalks. Soon they too will wither and the whole plant will collapse. You kneel at the base of the fallen greens, shove your hands into the soil, and immediately meet resistance. The ground is full of what seem to be rocks. But they are not rocks - they are potatos. The ground is full of food. It was laying there, completely hidden, just inches below the surface. Beautiful jewels of food, hidden in the ground. Below a particularly vigorous plant there may be so many that some are pushed up above the soil into the air - an amazing gift. When I see such a gem, I feel like a diamond miner who stumbles on a huge stone that is simply laying on the ground waiting to be picked up.

I fill my basket, return to the house, and pour them into the sink to rinse off the clods of dirt that have stuck to them, revealing shining skins encasing pods of starch. They are pink, and burgundy, and yellow. They are bumpy or smooth, creased, folded, crooked, round, oblong, with immaculate virgin coats or studded with eyes.

There was food in the ground. I put my hands in the earth, and there was food there. Magic.
Tis is the season to shop. A new computer printer. A set of matching steak knives. A box of chocolate truffles in the shape of little snowmen. A lamp, a desk, chair, a duster, a set of jumper cables, wrapping paper, scissors, and tape. It's great! But guess what - each of these things is going to come with an owner's manual. And that owner's manual is going to spend most of its pages warning you of the hazards of using the product.

Don't shine that flashlight in your eyes! Don't tilt too far back in your chair! By no means should you attach those jumper cables to your testicles (without adult supervision!) I just received a car charger for my cell phone. It's owner's manual warns that it should not be used underwater. Sage advice. Next time I drive my car into a lake I'll be sure to unplug my iPhone first.

I think these owner's manual should come with their own warnings. "Warning: by the time you get done flipping through all the pages of warnings in this manual, you will have forgotten what you're trying to learn how to do." Also, "Warning: we've used so much paper, and spent so much money printing the warnings in this manual that we didn't have room to put in the information you're looking for."

I think it is time to institute the new handy-dandy "Universal CYA Product Warning (tm)":

WARNING: if you use this product, whether as directed or not, you and everyone you know will die a horrible death in shrieking agony!
I say, just put that on the cover of every owner's manual in bright red block letters and then let the contents of the manual consists of information that might actually be useful.

You have been warned.
Andrew Sez: "When life gives you some strange fruit that you've never seen before, make a sweet beverage from it which doesnt have a name."
As you know, in my spare time I am an internationally renown economist.

Here, then, is a modest proposal for bailing out the banking system.

The crux of this proposal is to use the FDIC and changes in FDIC policy to relieve the pressures on the banking system. First, Congress should allocate a huge block of money to assure full funding of FDIC. FDIC traditionally has about 1.25% coverage of insured funds. At the end of 2007, FDIC had about $52 billion to cover $4.3 trillion in assets (source - wikipedia.) Congress promising $100 billion to FDIC should go a long way towards alleviating fears of bank insolvency, while being far short of the $700 billion being asked for in the current plan. Further, such money might never be needed. FDIC should then increase the maximum insurance per account from the current $100,000 to at least $500,000, or better yet $1 million. This would decrease the pressure on banks from high-net-worth depositors withdrawing money.

Next, FDIC should temporarily lower its capital ratio requirements. According to Wikipedia, the current capital ratio requirements are as follows:
  • Well capitalized: 10% or higher
  • Adequately capitalized: 8% or higher
  • Undercapitalized: less than 8%
  • Significantly undercapitalized: less than 6%
  • Critically undercapitalized: less than 2%

"When a bank becomes undercapitalized the FDIC issues a warning to the bank. When the number drops below 6% the FDIC can change management and force the bank to take other corrective action. When the bank becomes critically undercapitalized the FDIC declares the bank insolvent and can take over management of the bank." (Source, - wikipedia.)

I propose that for 6 months capital requirements be lowered as follows:

  • Well capitalized: 8% or higher
  • Adequately capitalized: 5% or higher
  • Undercapitalized: less than 3%
  • Significantly undercapitalized: less than 1.5%
  • Critically undercapitalized: less than 0.25%

Yes, these numbers are drastic, but they would keep banks afloat temporarily. This would allow these banks to sell off assets or seek investors or take-over suitors in an orderly fashion. Since FDIC would be well funded and would be guaranteeing deposits up to $500K or $1M, there shouldn't be runs on these banks, even at exceedingly low capitalization.

One downside to this structure is that it would incent banks that are currently capitalized at 10% to lower their capitalization. Therefore, there would need to be a counter-incentive, which could be provided in the form of a larger spread in the insurance rate. Banks which have and maintain greater than today's 10% capitalization would be rewarded with a very low insurance rate. As capitalization decreases, the insurance rate would become more and more draconian. This would incent banks to maintain or increase their capitalization coverage, while not putting poorly capitalized banks immediately out of business. Well capitalized banks could buy out poorly capitalized banks, doing the math for themselves to see how the decrease in combined capitalization would impact their insurance rates. Similarly, poorly capitalized banks could sell assets or raise capital in a manner that balances their insurance rate with their capitalization costs. Well capitalized banks might find that it is worth their while to make new loans until their capitalization fell to 8%, thereby injecting liquidity into the system with no cost to taxpayers or shareholders.

Next, congress should mandate that all banks mark their assets to market, but would not require those banks to divest those assets. Some assets would be market down a little bit, others quite a lot, still others might be marked down to zero. Once this is done, if the bank's capitalization is below 0.25% (or negative,) FDIC would intervene and take over the bank. However, those banks that are liquid can continue to do business, and wont be required to divest those "toxic" assets. If banks were all required to divest these bad loans, or if the Fed were to take over those assets and put them on the market, the value of those assets would fall even further as there becomes an instant glut on the market. By allowing banks to continue to hold these subprime assets, but requiring them to mark them at their true market value, the marketplace is not overwhelmed and the banks can lend against their fair market value.

Finally, the bank's capital requirements would also temporarily be decreased - perhaps by as much as 50%. Capital requirement is a complicated piece of math, but where most banks have a capital requirement that works out to about 10%, lowering it to something like 5% temporarily would further give failing banks the breathing room necessary to recover or get taken over in an orderly fashion.

The benefits of this proposal are several. First and foremost, it requires no new governmental bureaucracy. Existing structures and institutions could be leveraged to solve this crisis. Second, it largely relies on the market to purge itself of this infection. Next, it keeps most banks in business and allows many banks to increase lending. Also, it should cost the taxpayer far less than the current $700B proposals - mostly this plan simply requires a promise to cover FDIC's insurance needs. Finally, it keeps the US government out of the business of owning and running banks.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I watched with interest both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions over the past two weeks. I have been tempted time and time again to write about the errors, inconsistencies, and lies promulgated by various speakers (mostly on the Republican side, since I am an unapologetic Democrat.) However, the web is a virtual cornucopia of such material, so what is the point of repeating it here. Yes, I might write about some of the worst offenses, but not yet.

One of the things I noticed in both conventions that had me scratching my head was that almost every speaker reported one or more pithy maxims that they learned from their forebears. Some, particularly the candidates themselves, overflowed with deep meaningful statements from their parents and grandparents. Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin could hardly open their mouths without coming up with some little chestnut; "A penguin without a hat wont nail a 2x4 for its nation." "If you haven't climbed a cherry tree, you must give America a phonebook." "When considering the past, always count your staples." And so on.

I wondered what I would say if I had to come up with insights about values handed down from generation to generation. I could hardly think of a damned thing. Were my parents and grandparents parsimonious with their wisdom, or simply unwise? Did an endless stream of pearls fall on my own deaf ears? Is my family exceedingly boring or selfish? Perhaps my forefathers and I have had better things to do than put observations of the world into words. Perhaps we were too lazy to do so. Perhaps it wasn't in our cultural background to make crafty statements. Perhaps we relied on the Bible and other literature to provide moral lessons instead of re-creating them anew.

I recall only one explicit character statement from my father. As a small child I allowed teasing from other kids to drive me to tears. My father took me out on the back stoop. He brought with him an apple and an orange. Dropping them both, he showed me that the apple was bruised, but the orange was not. He told me I needed to have "a thick skin like the orange" so I wouldn't get bruised. It was a good lesson has served me in life. [Aside: there was actually a second lesson from my father, much later in my life, but it was presented in confidence, so I will not repeat it here.]

There were other lessons handed down at the dinner table throughout my youth. The importance of education, not being a show-off, and noblesse oblige. Still, the plethora of maxims proffered at the party's conventions did have me wondering, did I miss something?