Post Apocalyptic Battle - Part 2

All the men who were already there, or could be got together on fairly quickly notice, set off.  There was Levi English, L.A. Franks, G.W. Dougherty, W.C. Bell, Frank Williams, Dean Oden, Bud English, Dan Williams, John Berry, Bob Aikens, and Ed Burleson.  I went along as guide and to help with scouting and tracking.   Levi English, the oldest in the party, had had some experience in previous fights with bandits, so he was chosen as Captain of our group.

Part 2

The account of Sarah Burleson (age 12) on the recent tragic encounter at Martin’s Texas excerpted  from a letter to her uncle.

It only took a moment to pick up the bikes trail out of town.  It was still early enough that the sun’s rays angled to make the shadows of their tracks stand out. 

When the main trail was struck the Gwats were found to be in a large force and going down toward the Leona River.  They crossed this stream near the burnt out Bennett’s Ranch, four miles below Burleson’s.  They went out into the open prairie in front of Martin’s ranch, ten miles further on.   There was no need for tracking with this large a number, and with my slow mare I wound up well behind everyone else.  Fortunately a breeze picked up that the dust from rising up to high, but it also blew it into my face, so I was not always able to see what happened all that well.  Some of what I got, I got second hand.

Our group came in sight of them two miles off, but they went down into a valley and were lost to sight for some time.  Suddenly, however, they came in view again, not more than 200 yards away. 

They were thirty-six in number, mounted two to each horse; they had a few bikes on a trailer pulled by a two horse team.  It looked like it had been the back-half of either an International Harvester Scout or Ford Bronco.  It had the top cut off, but it still had the drive train slung underneath:  good ground clearance.  They were armed with a combination of banana carbines, long magazine auto-pistols, and box-style crossbows.

The Gwats had seen us for the first time, and at once picked up their pace. 

Well the people who live in Texas these days get accuse of an awful lot.   But cowardice is not one of them.  We were a reckless bunch and immediately set to wild and impetuous charge.    Rifles and pistols, as they were had, were out and blazing.

Captain English shouted and yelled, trying to hold the men back.  Being already well back and with my slow horse reckless-charging was not a problem for me.  As I came up, he gave me a stern look and told me to stay back pointing to where I had just come up from.  He then spurred on to try and catch up.  I followed at a dusty, safe distance.

The Gwats ran for about a mile.  At which this point, having decided it likely they had drawn our fire, they stopped at a lone tree on a signal from their captain.  The team of horses continued on.   

Each Gwat who was mounted behind another jumped to the ground and came back at a charge.   For the first time they started shooting. 

The mounted ones circled to the right and left and sent a shower of bolts and bullets.   Some of them went entirely around our men and a desperate battle at close quarters ensued.  We had fired off our shots at long and had no time to reload in such a fight.   They had the advantage in both numbers and shots.  With me being back a bit, they either did not see or choose not to bother me.

Dan Williams was the first man killed and when he fell from his horse was at once surrounded by the enemy.  Captain English managed to collect up the men, and they charged to the body of Williams.  After a hot fight they drove them back, but in so doing fired their last loads.

The Gwats were quick to see this, and came back at them again.  A retreat was ordered. 

Frank Williams, brother to Dan, had dismounted by the side of his dying brother and asked if there was anything he could do for him and said that he would stay with him.  “No” said Dan, handing Frank his pistol; “take this and do the best you can.  I am killed and can’t live ten minutes.  Save yourself.”  The men were even now wheeling their horses and leaving the ground, and Frank only mounted and left when the Guatemalans   were close upon him. 

They  came after them, yelling furiously, and a panic ensued.  Dean Oden was the next one to fall.  His horse was wounded and began to pitch, and they were soon upon him.  He was dismounted and was wounded in the leg.  He attempted to remount again, but was wounded six times more in the chest and back, as they were still on all sides of him.  L.A. Franks was near him trying to force his way out, and the last he saw of Oden he was  down to his knees and his horse gone.

The next and last man killed was Bud English, the Captain’s son.  He was shot in the chest  with a bullet. His father stayed by his body until all hope was gone and all the men scattered away.

The Indians pursued with a fierce vengeance, getting all mixed up with us, and many personal combats took place.    The men were striking with the Indians with their unloaded guns and pistols.  In this wild flight all the rest of the men were wounded except Franks, Berry, and Frank Williams.  Captain English was badly wounded in the side with a bolt; Ed Burleson in the leg, Aikens in the breast, and W.C. Bell in the side:  all with crossbow bolts.

In this wounded and scattered condition  we went back to the house and told the news of their sad defeat.  The sad wail of the families was heard well out into the plains.

Other men were collected, and led by the unhurt men, returned to the battleground to bring away the dead.  The three bodies lay within 100 yards of each other.  The Guatemalans carried away what dead that they had had:   probably few on account of the reckless firing at the start of the battle.

The general look of the area.

Post Apocalyptic Battle - Part 1

Well I said I would get back to skirmishing.  This is part one.  There will be a sesond part, and then a sumation.

The account of Sarah Burleson (age 12) on the recent tragic encounter at Martin’s Texas excerpted  from a letter to her uncle.

I had gone out on our old mare to the edge of the old town to try and round up a couple of horses.   Being at it was the fourth of July it was pretty hot.   I was in a little bit of a hurry.  Some folks were coming over to our place to celebrate that evening and I didn’t want to be too late getting back.

The old town of Martin’s I guess was never particularly large by the standards of earlier times:  less than 1000 households.  It sat near Interstate 35, but never quite had the energy to reach it, falling a few hundred yards shy.

The land is pretty flat, and scrub is pretty high. I was on the old mare, headed out to the Interstate to round up some ponies.  You can see the highway overpass over Market Street from well into town.   But then the Castle of the Burger King does not seem very king-like either.  In any case, there are a lot of weeds and the road surface is weathered to gravel, but the brush doesn’t grow well on the road bed.

The Barbeque Café is on the right.  The first side street would be to the viewers immediate left.

I was about 500 yards from the highway, almost to the last building at the edge of town, the old “Barbeque Café.”  It is really just an old steel frame building with some of the barn red paint still holding onto its north side.  Why they hadn’t called it the Barbeque Barn I couldn’t tell you.  Well as I was just starting to come along side of it, and I heard a high pitched whine.  I recognized the sound right way.  It was a moonshine-trike or booze-bike.  Someone had popped out of the opposite side of the café and was coming right at me on a booze-bike.  They were just a little too determined to be friendly.

I got the mare moving forward as quickly as possible.  Not exactly a plunging leap, but maybe a trot.  The scooter went zipping by on my backside.  The guy on it was not a real big guy height wise but he looked stocky and strong.  He had dark skin like an Indian or a Mexican, and was wearing some sort of heavy plastic clothing:  maybe armor.  He had a banana clip carbine slung to his back. 

He had a hard time coming to a quick stop on the sandy roadbed and gut hung up a little as he slid into some of the sage brush.  I had managed to get the mare turned around back in the direction of town and thought I might have a chance at getting away.  But with a shiver of dread I saw another one had come running out of the café angling so as to meet me on the road back.   Somewhere in this commotion I saw what looked like a dark red blazing sword on a patch on his shoulder.  This confirmed my suspicion that they were Gwats. 

Gwats are Guatemalans that work with the Mexican Zetas.  From the warning leaflets we had received they belong to a group known as Kaibiles, but everyone calls them Gwats.  This was the first time they had been seen in town, but it was not a real shock them being here.  When they are being nice they work as traders and scavengers for the South Americans.  Otherwise they operate as slavers, bandits and murderers.

There was a side street I could have taken, but I thought the bike could catch me there.  I doubt they knew I was a girl.  They probably wanted the horse, possibly for food on the hoof.  But some point the rider was bound to unsling his banana rifle if he thought I might get away.  So instead I took a narrow gap in the scrub between the remains of two ranch homes.

This section of town is the edge of a very loose street grid.  The guy on the scooter was not too hard to avoid, because he was reluctant to get too far off the road bed.  As I could hear him, I could always double back away from him.  The guy on foot was a much more difficult proposition.  I had my small .32 pocket pistol, but he had some sort of automatic pistol with a long magazine.  I did not want him to get to where he was in a position to use it, and he was just about as fast as my mare.  Faster on the turn.

Well we bounced around from block to block.  With me being up a little higher, I could see where I was going a little better and eventually got through a series of overgrown hedges and came out in the back garden of our house.  The one on foot very nearly got me at the end, but he could probably heard voices and commotion and let up.  Already a lot of people had showed up at our house for the celebration.  I of course dashed in and gave the alarm.

The route home

The Baumol Effect

The Baumol Effect (or disease)

. It involves a rise of salaries in jobs that have experienced no increase of labor productivity in response to rising salaries in other jobs which did experience such labor productivity growth. This goes against the theory in classical economics that wages are always closely tied to labor productivity changes

Something I had not thought of in relation to a continual increase in the size of government, education, and health care.   Matthew Ylesias comments on it relative to education.

The Baumel Disease would probably not be a huge problem when these sectors are relatively small.    The productivity growth from the dynamic sectors would pay for the increases in the other sectors.  But when sectors that are known to be low in productivity growth become a larger portion of the economy, even when there is productivity growth in the dynamic portions of the economy, there may not be enough growth to pay for increased wages in non-growth areas. 

It was first noted in the 1960s which is interesting as this just prior to the time period when you would think that the problem would start becoming acute: the 1970s.

Hitting the (Mirrored) Wall 3

We will start where we have been before, but are going to wind our way toward other subjects.  We may ramble a bit.  Eventually we will try and close the loop on diminishing returns on the industrial revolution, and our current narcissism.  It could be said in two sentences (to paraphrase Freya) but there would be no supporting information and links.

Tyler Cowen has had out an e-book, The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better.  I have mentioned on an earlier  post.  In it he discusses U.S. income stagnation since the 1970s and attributes it to a deceleration of scientific and technical advances within the U.S. economy.

He commented on Alexander J. Fields work on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) which is total output not caused by inputs.  So if you put 1 in, and get 2 out, you have TFP.  Technology growth and efficiency are two of the biggest factors in TFP.

Fields in his study History of U.S. Productivity in a Nutshell   (ht to MR) noted the following:

TFP growth virtually disappeared in the US between 1973 and 1995. TFP growth was in fact quite robust between the end of the Civil War and 1906.

In a study I found, also by Fields,  The Most Technologically Progressive Decade of the Century he commented further:

Because of the Depression’s place in both the popular and academic imagination, and the repeated and justifiable emphasis on output that was not produced, income that was not earned, and expenditure that did not take place, it will seem startling to propose the following hypothesis: the years 1929–1941 were, in the aggregate, the most technologically progressive of any comparable period in U.S. economic history.

[D]uring this period businesses and government  contractors implemented or adopted on a more widespread basis a wide range of new technologies and practices, resulting in the highest rate of measured peacetime peak-to-peak multifactor productivity growth in the century, and secondly, that the Depression years produced advances that replenished and expanded the larder of unexploited or only partially exploited techniques, thus providing the basis for much of the labor and multifactor productivity improvement of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

All of this is very interesting.  Of course most people are familiar with Ford and his assembly lines,  Edison (really Tesla and Westinghouse) and his electricity, and the Wright Brothers.  It is just not obvious when all of this inventiveness came to its peak fruition.

There is now an emerging consensus that, looking back over the course of U.S. history, the period between roughly 1905 and 1966 experienced exceptionally high rates of multifactor productivity growth, substantially higher than those evidenced in the decades preceding and following, when a much higher fraction of labor productivity growth is to be attributed simply to capital deepening (Abramovitz and David, 1999, 2000; Gordon, 1999, 2000a, b, c).

If I am understanding him correctly, what he is saying is that the low hanging fruit of the industrial economy was captured in the 1930s and 40s.  But there was still a lot of applications to apply after that period.  So there was growth, just not as extreme.    Also many of the improvement put in place in the 1920s (a lot of it being automobile related) began to bear fruit in later.

Although not as extreme of a drop off as with the productivity numbers, they do indicate a tailing off period.

One side note we should make,  extreme advances in manufacturing productivity have been discussed as one of the reasons that the United States was so slow to come out ot the Great Depression.  Even when demand would pick up, you needed less workers to perform the same amount of work.  But this is not popular with Economists who seem to like money measure and output measure explanations.

Earlier we were discussing the narcissism of the Greatest Generation 2.   Here is one of the key seeds in the process. 

The United States through the 19602 in its own estimation had been the ever-optimistic, ever-expanding, ever-growing forever.  We were proud of our country.  We had conquered Jim Crow, spawned The Great Society, and The Go Go years.  There had been  a lot of new technology and growth that paid back dividends for this optimism and self-pride.

Well along comes the 1970s, you have the Kent State massacres, Nixon resigning, and the Arab Oil Embargo.  All of these events point to a variety of problems.   But every age has its problems.  In my opinion it was the slowdown in output, timed extremely poorly with the post war demographic bubble that really caused the problems.

But we are an optimistic crowd.  In the past, when you went in debt it paid itself off (we will pretend that the 1920s consumer finance bubble occurred), and our government will go on a huge spending binge and continually devalue the dollar.  The long-serving,  conqueror of inflation, Greenspan, will leave the dollar at half its value as when he started his term.  Eventually we will begin using our homes as piggy banks.

Business drives forward on this spending.  It has its usual cycles, but it keeps churning along.  But while the children are doing well, most of them will notice that it is not as easy as it was for their post war parents.  You went to school, but the automatic 30 year career track was a lot harder to achieve.  Companies became much quicker to layoff, and if you were laid off you had a very hard time ever recovering those wages.  If you were union labor, a lot of your work went to the non-union, low wage south, or eventually, overseas.

But you are within a very optimistic society.  If you are not an optimist, you are bad.  One of  Reagan’s (and Rush Limbaugh’s) most effective attacks against the Liberals was that they were a bunch of whiny losers.  That the Democrats presided over much of the growth period (and in fairness some of the downturns as well)  was beside the point.  You needed to think positively.

So in a society where success is difficult, you begin to value the feelings of success, the self esteem, more highly then the success.  If you cannot be successful, at least you can feel good about yourself.

And thus we train ourselves a wonderful group of high self esteem narcissists.

I suppose you could view it as a blessing.  If the whole edifice comes crashing down, they may not do much about it, but they will feel good about themselves.