Sunday, January 14, 2024

Go Ahead, Try And Argue Facts....by Karl Denninger

 You'll fail, but I would love to see this debate such as it is.

Let's start: Boeing.  An aircraft "door" (really a plug, but in a place where it can be a plug or a door) flies off in flight.  Looking at the images posted by the passengers on social media and which got out basically immediately it is clear that at least two, and perhaps as many as four, bolts, nuts and cotters or safety wire were missing.  This is really not in much dispute and wasn't as soon as the door was found and not structurally "folded" -- and the airframe portion where it is installed appears to be undamaged so we know that did not fail either. The frame of the door drops over two pins on the frame of the fuselage at the top on each side, the bottom two hinge points are vertical posts, the hinges are still there (so the bottom attachments to the hull are intact) and so are the pins on the side.  Once over the pins a bolt is inserted from the rear with a nut and a cotter pin or safety wire on the front, so the bolt cannot back out -- but with that bolt in there it is impossible for the plug to rise vertically and clear the pins because the bolt blocks it from moving, and thus it cannot come off.  It may also be the case (not sure without being able to personally view the assembly) that the two retaining bolts on the bottom going through the pins on the hinge assemblies also prohibit vertical movement (in which case its four bolts, nuts and cotters that have to be missing.)  Even if the torque on those four bolts is incorrect if the cotters or safety wires are installed there is no way for them to back off.

I like this design; it requires four separate fuck-ups to come apart in flight and it appears that is exactly what happened.  That is either wild-eyed gross-incompetence or deliberate, but whichever it is doesn't matter because there are supposed to be cross-checks and sign-offs by both the original person who does the work and someone who checks it.  

If you want an example of this sort of secondary safety design look under your car at the steering tie rod to knuckle joint at each front wheel -- they are all basically the same no matter what brand and model of vehicle you drive, and for good reason.  The rod coming from the steering mechanism has a ball joint on it that ends in a morse taper; that taper fits into a tapered hole in the knuckle, a castellated nut is placed on it and then after it is tightened to specification a cotter pin is put through the nut and bolt so it is impossible for it to come loose in the event it was improperly assembled.  If it does come loose your wheel will fold backward and you will crash so it is pinned to prevent that even though a morse taper joint that is properly assembled and torqued will not come apart anyway; that is an extremely strong connection that can be later removed for service.  The cotter pin is a secondary safety -- just in case -- because the consequence of it disassembling itself is that you will crash the car.

There are roughly 275 million vehicles on the road in America and yet you basically never hear of this happening, and that's why.  When it does happen its because one of the ball joints breaks, which can occur over time due to wear and is why inspecting them is part of ordinary maintenance (and why the tie rod ends are easily replaceable; you can change one in 20 minutes or so on most vehicles and they're not expensive, although you should have the alignment checked after doing so -- if you pay attention you can pull it off without materially altering the front-end alignment -- I have done it several times.)

So how did it happen in the case of Alaska Air?  At least two and perhaps four bolts, nuts and their safety wiring or cotter pin were left off when the plug was installed onto the frame of the aircraft.  What's worse is that United, when inspecting their similar aircraft after the first incident, has reported loose bolts on the lower hinge assemblies and some photos of those have circulated.  Again everything has a torque spec in anything important on an aircraft (or in a car for that matter) and in an aircraft someone has to install it to specification and then it has to pass inspection, with both the person who did the installing and inspecting signing off on it.  Obviously the inspecting is not happening and the installing is not being done competently which is not one failure it is two failures, sequentially, in the same place.

What happens when you start firing people who are skilled (and expensive) and replace them with people who are less-skilled (and cheaper)?  This!

What happens when anything other than competence becomes the metric on which people obtain a position?  Like, for example, whether they're of a given sex, race, color, creed or some other criteria such as how "queer" they are?

This!

Do you think this is only at Boeing?  Oh no it isn't.

We knew in 1981 that masks don't work to block bacterial infections in an operating room.  We know this because Neil Orr proved it.  A series of studies after his tried to refute his findings and managed only to reinforce them including one in which the masks were loaded with non-harmful microspheres and then worn by the people in the OR and the contaminant, simulating what you would expel from your lungs if you were infected, was found in the surgical wounds.  Viruses are a thousand times smaller than bacteria and those microspheres.  In other words the mask is a talisman, we knew this forty years ago and yet as soon as Covid showed up here come the mandates despite it being a fact that they don't work and they don't work even when used among 100% trained professionals who all know and can observe proper procedure for using and, after use, disposing of them to avoid cross-contamination.  Nobody in the ordinary civilian population will manage to pull that off especially when they're hanging their masks from the rearview mirror in their cars.

We have an entire political class -- all of them -- that believes they can continually spend more than is taken in via taxes and not ultimately wind up with a debt-based detonation of the government and economy.  This, despite the fact that taking this action will always destroy the government and economy, every single time.  Every time it will look exactly like this and guess what -- it does this time in America today exactly as it has everywhere else, every other time:

Link to author's site below to view chart


Why?  Because the laws of mathematics are not suggestions and exponents are something you learn about in middle school.  This shows debt, starting at 25% of GDP, where GDP expands at 5% and debt expands at 7%.  Everything appears ok at first but it is guaranteed to blow up in your face down the road, every single time, and it takes 30 seconds to prove it with a piece of graph paper (or its modern equivalent in Excel or Google Sheets.)

Any politician who pursues such a policy should be dragged out of office by their hair and immediately executed in public using a dull, rusty steak knife to make sure it takes a long time, is excruciatingly painful, and sets an example for all who follow in said office as to what will happen to them if they do it again because it is an absolute certainty that down the road, if this policy is in fact pursued, that will happen every single time and it will destroy the economy and economic prosperity of the population targeted at the children and grandchildren who obviously cannot vote said assholes out of office as they're not alive yet.

EVERY
SINGLE
TIME

Now perhaps you don't know this but anyone who actually passed Algebra in High School either does or should and by the way where is Jerome Powell on this who most-certainly did pass, never mind Bernanke and the rest of the "mavens" on Wall Street and in the banks.

Now perhaps you are ok with committing intentional economic suicide designed to screw the next generation or one a couple down but anyone who gives a shit about their kids and grandkids are not.  An increasing number of actually intelligent young people have figured out that their parents and the politicians fucked them up the ass on purpose and thus guess what -- they're not making any more children on purpose!

Why would they procreate when the people "in charge" have deliberately designed an economic structure that is mathematically guaranteed to fuck their kids up the ass and leave them destitute?  Since stopping it requires cutting off heads -- voting obviously has not stopped it since neither party has put an end to any of the scams despite each having multiple turns at the helm the only remaining non-violent option is to close your legs and not make victims you will then have to atone for intentionally bringing into a hellscape 30 or 40 years hence when you finally stand before St. Peter.

Who's left?  Shaquila, who failed Algebra because she was only concerned with getting porked by her boyfriend and thus didn't bother showing up in class and who doesn't give a shit about the children she drops out of her crotch, none of whom she knows the father of with certainty, because each one of them lets her have a larger balance on EBT card that she can then spend on booze and drugs.

Of course none of those kids are likely to go to school either because she sees them as nothing more than a paycheck funded by "someone else" and she doesn't realize that when those two curves cross she starves too.  She thinks she has "won" by laying on her back.  Wrong, but in the meantime she makes a bunch of gang-bangers and gee, we don't have that going on all over the place do we?

Oh then we make it worse by opening the border and letting 10 million more people who cannot possibly produce enough output to balance what they take into the country which just further accelerates the debt side of the curve.

Naw, nobody would ever do that, right?

Uh huh.

You think this isn't the same shit that was pulled at Boeing?  It sure as hell was and you just saw what's going to happen to the entire economy and our nation if we don't cut it out right here, right now.  Doing that means ejecting all the illegal invaders, cutting off all the medical scams and schemes so as to wildly contract both federal and private spending and allowing asset prices to collapse, which they must and will as soon as this crap stops.  It means that the politicians must be told that they either run a no-bullshit cash-based surplus or they're out -- they can either voluntarily leave for their outrageously insane prior acts or they will be forced to leave.

For the next installment maybe I'll talk about some of those strictures in one specific area -- Real Estate -- that have been and are designed to wildly-increase price and thus screw you while the Black Rocks of the world laugh at your expense.  I've already outlined how to solve the medical problem -- a long time ago, with specific implementation details.

That is, if you give enough of a shit to care about what the laws of mathematics tell you is happening -- right here, right now -- and are willing to get off your ass and do whatever you must to stop it.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=250507