Chip Filson
by Edgar Guest (1916)
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.
Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart:
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumbmarks on the door.
Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh
An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
O’ her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.
Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ’come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ’em long ago, an’ trained ’em jes’ t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.
| Edgar Albert Guest, born on August 20, 1881, in Birmingham, England, but raised in Detroit, was a poet known for his popular verse. |
On Friday’s market close, traders were talking about the 10-year Treasury yield reaching 5%. Right now, it’s at 4.49%. Other short term rates were:
This inverted yield curve (10-year rates lower than short term yields) has been the situation for over a year.
When might rates stabilize or reverse is a topic for any CEO trying to manage multiple ALM risks. But must rates go back down? Or are are markets developing a new normal, higher yield curve?
This week I will look at some industry data about how this rise over the past 12 months has affected credit union liquidity.
Many economic observers have been puzzled why the highest short term rates this century have not stalled the economy, caused a recession, or even undercut the positive stock market gains. GDP is still growing.
But one person thinks this not-too-hot, not-too-cold economy must face a day of reckoning, unless interest rates come down soon. This is certainly not the Fed’s latest policy intent from their September meeting.
Kelly Evans is a commentator on CNBC’s The Exchange. For most of this year, she has been critical of the Fed’s increasing interest rate steps. She cites data from analysts which lead her to believe a recession is inevitable, unless the Fed pulls back quickly.
All of her columns last week examined the sources of interest rate pressures. These include the changing line up of who is buying Treasury debt, the increased burden from rising federal budget deficits, and why the zero interest rate era of quantitative easing is possibly over.
She has been sounding Cassandra-like warnings that the Fed’s rate rises are going to break something in the economy-a soft landing is not likely.
Here is an unusual Saturday column listing all of her commentary from last week. If you have time to skim only one, start with Friday’s because I believe it summarizes the forces she thinks are now manifested in growing market jitters.
“This was an important week in global markets. Long-term government bond yields showed early signs of a “disorderly” climb, not so much because of any improvement in the economic outlook, but concerningly, as investors seem to be testing how high rates need to go in a high-debt, high-deficit landscape where the key buyer of government bonds last decade (central banks) has vanished from the scene.
Central banks altogether bought $23 trillion of assets (primarily government debt and U.S. mortgages) in the past 15 years, according to Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett. That “liquidity supernova” caused “big asset price inflation…and in recent years subsidized massive U.S., U.K., and European government spending,” he wrote yesterday.
Now, that excess is unwinding. . .
So how did we get here? Here’s a recap of the pieces that examined that issue this week.
Monday: The $2 trillion deficit. How did we get here? A quick summary of growing government spending and flat revenue growth.
Tuesday: Will the deficit require the Fed to restart QE? The difficulty in reducing government spending.
Wednesday: When will markets force Washington’s hand? Unless fiscal spending is reduced, there is no telling how high rates might go.
Thursday: If bond yields don’t start dropping… her conclusion: If yields don’t start falling sharply on weaker data–as we’re expected to get in the fourth quarter–investors will really start panicking and rates will rise.
Friday: The sovereign debt bubble is bursting. This is her strongest warning. It starts by critiquing Modern Monetary Theory which asserted government deficits don’t matter. Here is an except:
“By the end of the 2010s, “austerity” talk was ancient history. Global bond yields simply weren’t rising, no matter how much debt governments were issuing. In 2019, almost a quarter of global government debt carried negative yields; it seemed markets were practically begging policy makers for more and more of it, with permission to juice their economies. The New York Times started carrying op-eds promoting the idea of “Modern Monetary Theory,” or near-limitless deficit spending; even mainstream economists like Robert Shiller seemed to half-endorse it.
“And if you really want to take a deeper dive, check out CBO’s writeup (from February) of the U.S. fiscal picture for the next ten years. You can see why markets are getting jittery.”
End
Tomorrow I will review the liquidity trends in credit union balance sheets for the twelve months ending June 2023.
A teenager’s college essay on the value and difficulty of alternative ways of seeing the world from the Free Press:
“In another scene from The History Boys, one English schoolboy preparing for Oxbridge entrance exams, Timms, asks Hector why they are reading the poetry of A. E. Housman instead of doing something “practical.”
Timms: I don’t always understand poetry!
Hector: You don’t always understand it? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now, and you will understand it. . . whenever.
Timms: I don’t see how we can understand it. Most of the stuff poetry’s about hasn’t happened to us yet.
Hector: But it will, Timms. It will. And then you will have the antidote ready!
Like Timms, I sometimes don’t understand what I’m learning or memorizing when I study poetry, but I believe Hector when he says it prepares us for the very real events of the world—going to war, falling in love, falling out of love, making a friend, losing a friend, having a child, losing a child.
Understanding ancient authors as they understood themselves is the surest means of finding alternatives to our current way of seeing the world.”
From Jake Meador’s essay, The Misunderstood Reason Why Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church:
“Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success.
Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.”
Once you know the right question to ask, the answer is often the easy part. Anon
The truth is that, to mean something, values always cost you something. Otherwise they’re just platitudes. Greg Satell
A reminder for work and ife:
People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.
From author and speaker Greg Satell’s article: Values Always Cost You Something
“The truth is that, to mean something, values always cost you something. Otherwise they’re just platitudes. . .
“Values are essential to how an enterprise honors its mission. They represent choices of what an organization will and will not do, what it rewards and what it punishes and how it defines success and failure. Perhaps most importantly, values will determine an enterprise’s relationships with other stakeholders, how it collaborates and what it can achieve.
“The problem is that values are often confused with beliefs. When you’re sitting around a conference table, it’s easy to build a consensus about broad virtues such as excellence, integrity and customer service. True values, on the other hand, are idiosyncratic. They represent choices that are directly related to a particular mission.
“Make no mistake. Real values always cost you something. They are what guides you when you need to make hard calls instead of taking the easy path. They are what makes the difference between looking back with pride or regret. Perhaps most importantly, they are what allows others to trust you.
“Without genuine commitment values, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no shared purpose.”
National Sunflower day is this week.
The center of America’s sunflower growth is North Dakota. This year, the state’s farmers grew 625,000 acres of the cheery yellow plants, which can be used to make products like nut butter, cooking oil, confectionery seeds and bird food.
Below is my contribution to the annual celebration. The seed packet said the Autumn Beauty should grow to 6-7 feet in height. Hard to imagine from a little seed.
But one of the seeds decided to outdo itself. It is now 12 feet tall with two stakes providing reinforcement. Here is the crown with more flowers forming.
The current height and still growing.
A proud gardener with nature’s surprise. Two smaller cousins on the way beside it.
“Be like a sunflower so that even on the darkest days you can stand tall and find the sunlight.”
What does a leader do when something goes awry in an organization?
Some will keep the event quiet, trying to handle the problem privately. Others will revise an organization’s manual about how to handle such situations. Some will go public saying the incident has been addressed and will not happen again.
These and other responses are reasonable, but are they sufficient? Is the organization’s leadership more trusted or effective?
One of the most difficult challenges is when members violate the values of an organization.
Five years ago this was a leader’s response at the United States Air Force Military Academy when confronted with an incident.
No viewer of this five minute address will question the ideas presented: replace a bad idea with a better one; if you do not agree with this, then you do not belong; practice civil discourse; or the power of diversity.
But what makes this situation different from many is that the “CEO” goes public, placing his leadership on the line.
Transparency is the most critical component for an organization’s leadership especially if they aspire to be democratic, serve the public or just be respected.
Watch and learn. The next time you want to make a lasting point, tell the audience to Reach for your Phones!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkUrnHT1VvI)
Zoom, a company synonymous with remote work, is calling employees back to the office.
From the news story: “We believe that a structured hybrid approach — meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams — is most effective for Zoom,” Colleen Rodriguez, Zoom’s head of global PR, said in a statement. “As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.” The company’s new hybrid work approach will roll out over August and September.