Whispering walls

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( Whispering Walls By Bill Bonner Wednesday, August 11, 2021 [Bill Bonner] POITOU, FRANCE – “It’s probably the greatest fiscal con job that’s ever been perpetrated on the U.S. public,” said Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke on Monday. He was talking about the “infrastructure” bill. Headlines report it variously at $550 billion, $1 trillion, and $1.2 trillion. We could google it to find out for sure exactly how much money is being frittered away, but we’re not going to bother. What’s a few billion more or less? Besides, as Mr. Hanke points out, it is just the snout of a “$5 trillion monster” that the feds are now stitching together. Up next is the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” budget. And then, in “reconciliation” – where the House bills and Senate versions are reconciled – there comes another opportunity to sew on more ears and noses. Recommended Link [Musk, Cuban, Branson & 7 of World’s Biggest Banks Piling into THIS]( [Odd new tech]( has the smartest Billionaire investors piling in: [image]( - TV “Shark Tank” investor Mark Cuban - Founder of Virgin Richard Branson - Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey - Outspoken CEO of Tesla Elon Musk - And 7 out of 10 of the world’s largest banks It has nothing to do with Virgin, Tesla, or Twitter stock… and it’s not Bitcoin. [$25 gets you in – here’s how [VIDEO].]( -- Spontaneous Performance We’ll leave that story for another day. Today, we will continue telling you about our [home in France](. Yesterday, some neighbors stopped over. One of them sat down at the piano and began to play. And the house rejoiced. [image]( Our neighbor’s impromptu piano recital Different Sounds But let’s back up… a quarter of a century. The sounds then were very different. “Time to get up… We have work to do!” Every Saturday morning, we rattled the children’s bedroom doors. “Do we have to?” came the little voices from within. “Yes.” A groan inevitably followed. Oh yes… there were unhappy sounds as well as joyful ones. The walls remember them all. Then, one by one, the children staggered down the stairs to breakfast in front of an open fire (our only source of heat). The children were obliged to help their father on Saturdays. On Sundays, they had the day to themselves… for catching up on schoolwork or doing whatever they wanted. The house was built centuries ago; no one knows exactly when. It fell into the hands of the Ducellier family during the French Revolution. They bought it at a “candle auction” (the top bid when the candle goes out is the winner), after the previous owners fled to England to escape the Terror. The Ducelliers lived here for the next 200 or so years – making substantial modifications and embellishments in 1910. And there it was when we came on the scene… naïve pilgrims from the New World, with stars in their eyes so bright, they hardly noticed that the house was a wreck, neglected for decades… with a roof leaking like a sieve… wiring from the 1950s… skeletal plumbing… and a furnace that was a fire hazard. What a great project! We had years of fix-up ahead of us, working together with the family… [Featured: New Investment “Craze” Hits All 50 States]( Damp and Cold We brought the family to the house in the dead of winter. “The heat works fine,” the previous owners had told us. But the antique wood furnace in the basement was hardly up to the job. If we chucked in oak logs, about a yard long, all day long, we could get the temperature in the house above 45 degrees… But by then, the furnace was red hot and the house was ready to catch fire. After about a month, we had run into stiff opposition. The house was so damp… and so full of mold and mildew… we were getting sick. The children’s tutor, who had eagerly followed her students to France, had to be hospitalized. “Maybe we should go home,” was the proposed strategy for a retreat. “But this is our new home,” we answered. “She needs us.” We moved to a small, abandoned farmhouse. There, we opened the windows… swept… mopped… and made a giant fire in the kitchen fireplace. It was primitive, but it seemed dry enough to survive in. We camped out in the farmhouse for a few months – until the long days of summer had dried out the main house. Recommended Link [Millionaire’s Big Prediction From Living Room Couch]( [image]( Teeka Tiwari – America’s No. 1 Investor – just made an outrageous prediction. Recorded live from his living room couch… He blasts Congress, reveals nasty truths about America… And reveals one technology set to radically change our nation. Already, 400,000+ viewers have checked it out. WARNING: This video may make you furious. [Watch His Urgent Video Now]( -- New Sounds Meanwhile, the work continued. The old walls – undisturbed for so many years – heard new sounds… …scrapers on the old plaster walls, as we removed the old, musty wallpaper (hot, soapy water helped, we discovered)… …hammers, screwdrivers, and saws, as we rehung the doors and corrected the wooden trim… …shovels, trowels, and cement mixers, as we laid up stone walls and patched plaster… …and the sound of glass breaking, as we replaced hundreds of cracked or broken window panes. The walls surely recorded the happy sounds – birthday parties in the dining room… sing-alongs on the veranda… jokes and laughter in the kitchen… …and the bitter sounds, too – the family crises… moments of sadness and despair… falls… chipped teeth… kicks from horses… the rush to the emergency room. The complaints and the cries – whimpers and whoops – the walls heard them all. Our aunt died here; she is buried in the local cemetery. Fitting In Yes, a house forgets. But [a home remembers](. A home is where you bury the dead, but keep the family alive. It remembers who you are and where you came from. It is where you keep the family albums… the heirlooms, souvenirs, and mementos… Uncle Charlie’s shotguns… Aunt Louisa’s dresser. It is where the piano sits, waiting for a gentle caress… alongside an old guitar, its strings eager for fingers. We were as many as 12 people in our little tribe. Children, parents, grandmother, aunt, tutor… and a friendly carpenter from America, who lived with us. The locals worried that we were a cult. And at first, not knowing the language very well, we must have seemed weird… like the Branch Dravidians or the Children of God. But gradually – through school, church, and farm connections – we took our place in local society – unusual, but not at all a threat to the community. Au contraire, we fit right in. The stability of the farming area appealed to us; it recalled the pleasant, family-oriented life on the banks of the Chesapeake back in the 1950s and 1960s. That life was lost forever, as the Washington suburbs grew… But here, we found something similar. Something that seemed even more stable. These were homes, not just houses. Old houses were rarely sold. New ones were rarely built. [Featured: (Bizarro World) Facebook set to launch new cryptocurrency?]( Dangerous Work And they had workshops. Ours was like a museum, with belt-driven tools… including a bandsaw that would take your whole hand off in a second. One day, we entered the workshop to find our youngest son – then about seven years old – playing with his friend from across the road. They were using the bandsaw to make swords! Oh la la! We dismantled the saw… It was just too dangerous. Almost every window had at least one broken pane of glass to replace. These were French windows. The work could be done from the inside. But the outside frame could be tricky… especially if it had to be replaced. And the windows on the third floor and in the fourth-floor attic were much too high to be reached by ladder. We devised a system. We pushed a long board out the window, resting on the sill… The children (and sometimes their mother and grandmother) would sit on the board inside the house, while their father ventured out on the other end of the teeter-totter to do the work. “Whatever you do, don’t get up,” he warned them, tying a rope around his waist, just in case. “Don’t tempt us, Dad,” they replied, giggling. Embedded Memories Yes, the house must recall that. And the time we scrambled up on top of the chimney in order to lower a bag of nails to clean out a bird’s nest… ...and when we held a party on the lawn and sang Johnny Cash and Grateful Dead songs until after midnight… ...and when the chimney caught fire and spewed sparks so high, neighbors called the fire department. But that was then. Those things are embedded in the walls. And in the ground. We were lucky. A local entrepreneur – Mr. Brule – took charge of the heating and plumbing. His business was drilling wells. But he was the sort of fellow you need on a job like that – confident and able to take command and make things happen. That was 25 years ago. The old house still stands. But poor Mr. Brule cannot stand at all. He has Multiple Sclerosis. What a curse it must be to a man so active… so accustomed to being in charge. He cannot walk… and can barely see. Recommended Link [To Any American Who Owns a Cell Phone]( [image]( If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. It was shot in downtown Denver by a multi-millionaire, who exposed sensitive truths about mobile phones and 5G. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But you’ve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. [Click here to see this video.]( -- Last Two Standing And now, it is a quarter-century later for us, too. The old house needs more work. But now, the children are all grown up. They have families of their own. Jobs in Paris, California, and Florida. Their own projects. Their own walls. Their own shouts and tears. Now, the tutor… the carpenter… and the children – all have left. Mother and aunt are both in their graves. Only two of us remain… father and mother… son and daughter-in-law… We reorganize the books and photos… fix the furniture… paint the shutters… And we listen to the walls. Growing older, the memories grow faint… We often can’t recall: “Who was that?” “What year was that?” “How old was he then?” But the home remembers everything. Regards, [signature] Bill Epilogue Years later, we went for a long horseback ride with one of the boys. It was a new adventure – high in the Andes mountains of South America. We were on the trail of some missing cows… out for a couple hours in a cold, windswept pass. We stopped for a bite to eat. But with the wind in our ears, we found it difficult to understand each other. “What did you say?” “I said it sucked.” “What sucked?” “That you made us work with you every damned weekend.” “What?” “I never complained about it.” “Yes, you did… You complained all the time.” “But you made us work anyway… and it sucked.” “Oh…” “Why?” “Why what?” “Why did you make us do it?” “Well… I needed the help.” “C’mon… We were more trouble than we were worth.” “Well… Not always. “Besides, I thought it was good for you. It showed you that you could work with your hands. You could do things. You know how to fix plaster… how to lay up a stone wall… how to paint. “You know how to make a nice place to live. A real home.” “Well… I hated it. I resented it.” “What?” “I said I hated it. I resented it.” “But doesn’t it make you feel good, knowing that you can do things with your own hands?” “No. I’d rather rent a place.” --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Whispering walls). --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [Prices Continue To Rise In America]( may insist that inflation is temporary, yet consumer prices rose 4.3% in the 12 months ended in July. Price increases are largely impacting shelter, food, energy, and new cars. The used car price index is also still up by 42%... [America’s Small Businesses Still Facing Labor Shortages]( CNBC survey shows that small businesses are having more trouble finding qualified labor than they were this time last year. Almost one third of employers said they have jobs open for up to three months… Employers say workers have the bargaining power to hold out for better wages… MAILBAG Readers have a lot to say regarding Monday’s Diary, “[Searching for Home]( Home truly is “where the heart is.” Mr. Bonner, many of your writings (note, I did not say editorials) are irritating and overly negative. This one exposes your heart and soul and makes me wonder who often appears to write those negative, disparaging words. I find “Home” in various places, including my favorite English pub and in my auto, ambling through the Midwestern part of this great country we live in. I find comfort and hope knowing the best is yet to come to all Americans. We will eventually “get it right” and everyone will have a chance to live the American Dream. – Mac M. Good read. Most people are so busy, they have no way to understand the difference between a place and a home. You are fortunate to have the experience and know it. – Michael W. “Like a faithful hound at the gate, it watches the road... looking for our return.” Bill, this has to be some of your finest writing yet, and is a welcome relief from the constant barrage of bad news. I grew up in an old farmhouse in New Jersey, built in 1765, and will always cherish the days of my youth there, especially the pond hockey! – Girard P. Another reader praises Bill’s writing and his workshop… There is a definite affinity between men who have workshops. Bill Bonner in Poitou has that venerable old look, with a classic carpenter's vice from long ago. Love it. Love his Diary… – Mike W. Is Bill’s writing “overly negative” as Mac M. comments, or is this just the world we’re living in? What does “home” mean to you? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Whispering walls). 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