Do you think debasement is unique to the monetary authorities? Heck no! For those of you familiar with the various hiking achievements, one of the most famous groups of treks on the East Coast is to complete the Adirondack 46.
This is supposed to represent the 46 peaks in the Adirondacks that exceed 4,000 feet (there are actually fewer than that, but that story is for another day). Hikers who complete the 46 become Adirondack 46ers if they do a little paperwork and have a sponsor for their trekking. Folks of course do all kinds of fun things with the 46, such as doing them in the winter or doing them continuously in less than a week and so on.
Of course, lots of folks wish to get in on the fun, so the Mayor of Saranac Lake, which sits just north and west of most of the high peaks in the Adirondacks and which has quite a spectacular view of many of them, wishes to promote something similar: the Saranac Lake Six:
I cannot recommend many hikes more than Ampersand, at least if you are into a great view from the top. But all of these are rather small peaks by “46er” standards. What’s next? The Monroe County 1, our effort to attract tourists to climb the one hill in Monroe County that exceeds 1,000 feet (Hopper Hills).
In other news, I was reading a piece the other day on “E”nvironmentalist opposition to a particular GM crop called Golden Rice, which is a rice strain fortified with Vitamin A. The “debate” aside from people knee-jerkingly not liking GMO crops, is that even if it is safe, it is not a very effective way to boost Vitamin A in deficient people. Recent research suggests otherwise. But I was taken dearly by a summary of the anti-rice “E”nvironmentalists, which went something like this:
“Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency”
So, let me get this straight: if some environmental project has been in development for almost two decades (or presumably longer) and has made small to no impacts on the problem it attempts to solve, does that mean we can all look forward to the “E”nvironmental community speaking out against wind, electric cars, organic food, recycling …?
Finally, I was reading a piece by an “E”nvironmentalist the other day which made a claim about some controversial environmental topic that included:
“The reaction of ________ was quite mixed and people can tend to be quite passionate about their opinions surrounding _____ on both sides”
If it’s all just opinion, how does one weight the various “opinions?” You know how it’s done on college campuses. Does anyone wonder how it gets done in the halls of your legislatures?
The same can be said for fiscal stimulus efforts. Every time the multiplier fails to materialize, the argument is always that the stimulus was too little.
Of course GDP, which includes government spending increases with more government spending and decreases with less of it, but that tautology is not rocket science economics.
I like the Adirondack mountain award inflation analogy. Pretty soon there will be a mountaineering plaque in the High Plains Petroleum Club in Liberal, Kansas.