Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

I like this analogy, from Instapundit

***

Don’t think that zero is as low as interest rates can go: money as a store of value is also threatened.

Primitive man often faced an interest rate of -%50 per hour, if he caught some meat for instance, and was trying to get it into the bellies of his family it spoiled or was snatched by competitors. Now you can store your income and wealth in financial instruments and only buy meat when you want to eat it, or keep it in the fridge or freezer for even greater convenience. We take all this for granted, but as near-zero nominal interest rates come to be paired with rising inflation–an outcome that is pretty much guaranteed under QE3–even coin and currency will no longer keep stored value from wasting away. We are heading into difficulties that should be a thing of the past, and its not just bedbugs and resistant disease. Government is squandering EVERYTHING.

***

So we need to invest in stuff that won’t spoil, that people will be willing to trade for after the economy collapses. Honestly, gold bullion doesn’t strike me as useful for everyday living. More useful, durable stuff would be:

Whiskey

Bullets

Toilet paper

I’m pretty much good to go.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Americans at large – other than Mormons – have never really taken the possibility of complete collapse seriously.

It’s looking smarter and smarter.

I bet I just got onto a DHS watchlist, didn’t I?

Watching Melissa Harris-Perry (!)’s meltdown on MSNBC…:

(Which I’ve moved below the jump, to keep it from auto-launching):

(more…)

A reader emails:

Driving home from [outstate] today. Going east by Monticello I saw a rig with a big picture of Obama on the rear of his trailer. Below it the caption read “Does this Ass make my Truck look Big?”

I just about lost control of the car with convulsive laughter.

I don’t suspect Obama and his gas prices and his “let’s import oil from Brazil!” policy are seeing a lot of traction among truck drivers.

Just for a fun Friday diversion, go through this article.

1. Substitute all references to “the coast” to “Minneapolis and Saint Paul”
2. Change all references to “The interior” to “The Iron Range”
3. Change the high-speed rail references to “Minneapolis to Duluth or Rochester” or whatever the current pipe dream is.
4. Change the other California references to Minnesota ones.
5. Save it away in case the DFL winds up with a couple of years of majorities with a sitting DFL governor.

You’ll save some time.  You’ll need it for job-hunting.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

It occurs to me that President Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That Yourself” theme may not be original to him.

The St. Paul City Council already had one like it, only theirs is longer: “If you have a successful business, you didn’t build that; at least not here because we won’t let you.”

Not sure which version I like better.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

It’s like asking “who do you like less: Rick Astley or Vanilla Ice?”

Why choose?

Mark Dayton, like Arne Carlson before him, believes that any economic activity is an excuse to raise “revenues” – and revenues are there to be spent.

And for those who didn’t get the point in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, perhaps the example of Stockton, California – which followed the Arne Carlson model of governance, “Spend it when you got it!”:

There is a sparkling marina, high-rise hotel and promenade financed by credit in the mid-2000s, mere blocks from where mothers won’t let their children play in the yard because of violence.

During the economic boom, this working-class city with pockets of entrenched poverty tried to reinvent itself as a draw to Bay Area refugees and a popular site for conventions. It offered generous city employee pension plans and benefits.

Like Carlson, and the DFLers he aped, Stockton spent like a grifter with a stolen platinum card when the times were good.

And now that the times aren’t so good?:

The city has the second-highest rate of foreclosures in the country and the second-highest rate of violent crime in the state.

The city made $90 million in drastic cuts from the general fund in the last three years, including reducing the police department by 25%, the fire department by 30%, and cutting pay and benefits to all employees.

And those union employees who were suckered to Stockton with the free healthcare and incredible benefits?

Very likely cut off!

The lesson – which Mark Dayton and his fanboy Arne Carlson never, ever had to learn – is that the good times just don’t last forever.

And if you’re one of those DFLers who’s ignoring Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy because it’s all just too complicated, pay attention to Stockton. And all of California, for that matter; Stockton is a microcosm of all of California’s problems.

And you can smell a little bit of Minneapolis and Saint Paul there, too.

Just keep repeating to yourself, Democrats: “Single-payer is the only option!  Single-payer is the only option’!  Single-payer is the only option“.

The answer is “Yes, if you’re an aspiring monk who’s taken a vow of poverty.  Then, you’re 40% of the way there“.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

NAACP sued over the Central Corridor Light Rail project’s impact on businesses. The federal court twice ordered an analysis of lost business revenues as an adverse impact of the projects construction.

The government entities instead told the court there would be “no significant impact” on businesses due to light rail construction.

Photo taken this morning from the parking lot of McDonalds at University and Marion.

Just another vacant building, right?

 You see the old Saxon Ford dealership, abandoned in 2004, completely rehabbed by Dr. Vang, a Vietnamese dentist and local hero.

Wrong! It used to be the Hmong MN Professional Building!

“No Significant Impact.”

Joe Doakes

Como Park

You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet, right?

And if those eggs don’t look like the kind of eggs they have where the white liberals who plan things like Central Corridors live?

Eggs is eggs!

The Strib has a bright idea about dealing with the Student Loan Crisis.

Joe Doakes from Como Park has a brighter one:

Instead of subsidizing the interest rate on student loans, just give ‘em the money outright. Typical Star Tribune solution.

Left unspoken is the fact the federal government took over student loans as part of Obamacare. Yes, the interest on student loans that is killing our young people’s futures was intentionally factored in to help maintain the illusion that Obamacare wasn’t a budget-buster. That’s also why student loans remain non-dischargeable in bankruptcy . . . the government needs that money to pay for Obamacare.

Also left unspoken are the obvious free-market alternative – let interest rates float to the market level and thereby help students decide on the real cost of college – along with the pernicious effect of “free money” causing skyrocketing education costs.

This is Liberal thinking at its worst – a bad idea supposed to be fixed by another bad idea. Positive feedback loop, anyone?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Now, I can see the Strib taking two approaches here:

1. Taking a step back and realizing the wisdom of the market’s – and Joe’s – idea, and…
2. Doubling down on socialism – accompanied by a smarmy Steve Sack cartoon ridiculing the notion of the market in education.

Any bets?

Joe Doakes from Como Park forwarded me an email for a “Continuing Legal Education” class with an interesting panel of guests (emphasis added):

Join extraordinary national and local speakers for a comprehensive update on all things banking law, including the latest information on new law and regulatory efforts.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

Leonard N. Chanin, Assistant Director, Regulations, for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau”

Timothy Divis, Regional Counsel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – “Regulatory Perspectives on Key Issues”

U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison, Member of the House Financial Services Committee –“Congressional Update”

Terry Jorde, Senior Executive Vice President/Chief of Staff for the Independent Community Bankers of America – “From the Farm Belt to the Beltway”

Steve Mumm, Senior Applications Analyst, and Jennifer J. Olson, Senior Attorney, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis – “A Refresher on Regulation Y”

Stacy Powers, Assistant District Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – “Regulatory Perspectives on Key Issues”

Attorney General Lori Swanson, Office of the Minnesota Attorney General – “Developments Affecting the Financial Services Industry”

Plus Minnesota’s leading banking law experts! Register now!

 

Doakes:

Keith Ellison and Lori Swanson are banking experts? Explains a lot about the problems in our financial system.

headline like that, how can you resist. Hoodies all around no doubt.

Heh.

Craig Bannister in CNS news reports on the Georgetown Law School student’s frankly bizarre testimony yesterday:

Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Pres. Obama’s mandate that virtually every health insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that it’s too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage.

Forget for a moment that Georgetown is the province of this nation’s self-appointed “elite” – Ms. Fluke and her classmates are paying $23K plus fees per year, and it’s pretty much an upper-middle-class fiefdom.  We’re not talking Metro State, here.

No – it’s a school for this nation’s self-appointed “elite”.

And it shows in the frustrated Ms. Fluke’s testimony:

“Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.

It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.

$3K for three years? $1K a year?  $80 a month?  $2.50 or so a day?

Numbers like these bespeak a career in Mark Ritchie’s State Department, or the DFL’s budget office.

That’s what your “elite” school tuition gets you these days.

And that’s what their graduates get you; you, Mr. Copier Repairman in Alexandria, will be paying for law students’ birth control.

And they, the future elite, would be paying for yours – except you’re working too hard to have any time for sex anymore anyway.

Did you know Minnesota had a Lieutenant Governor?

Gotta confess, I’d pretty much forgotten about Yvette Prosser Sorum.  A long-time legislator from Duluth, she served Governor Dayton’s need for a politician with ovaries and a relentlessly party-line record, to try to shore up DFL support after defying the DFL endorsement process and beating Margaret Anderson-Kelliher.

Wait – it’s Yvonne Prettner Solon?  Whew.  That coulda been embarrassing.

But not as embarrassing as this bit here, where our “Lieutenant Govenror” tries to talk economics:

Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon said the governor’s office wants all who are eligible to enroll in the program, which not only ensures Minnesotans have enough to eat and be healthy, but also helps the state’s economy.

“Every dollar of use of the SNAP program, there’s $1.73 that’s generated for our economy, which helps our grocery stores,” Prettner Solon said. “It helps our farmers. It helps everybody along the food supply chain.”

That’s right – food stamps help the economy!

Because the money that goes into food stamps comes from unicorns, brought to us in golden boxes.

It’s not like anyone had to pay for those food stamps (and the administrators who , well, administrate them) out of money taken from what they or their business had earned, right?

Well, not in DFL world, anyway.

This is a DFLer’s education at work.

Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:

The President’s budget plans to spend 4 trillion next year. We expect to take in about 2 trillion, leaving us short 2 trillion dollars.

His spending estimates for the next 10 years are no lower, so call it $40 trillion total of which we’re short 20 trillion. That’s the Deficit.

His cuts and tax increases propose to reduce the deficit by 4 trillion over that same period. 4 of the 20 trillion.

Meaning he expects to rack up another 16 trillion dollars in debt over the next 10 years, and that’s if everything works perfectly.

The European Union is collapsing. China has new cities standing empty and provinces in revolt. The Mid-East is ready to erupt again.

So I axe ya – who’s going to lend the United States government $16,000,000,000,000.00?

And who’s going to pay it back?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Why, we’ll tax the rich, silly!

Gas prices are going to spike again this summer.

Boy. Good thing Obama spiked the Keystone pipeline and has dragged oil drilling down steadily!

(“Hey!  We know the oil companies are going to raise prices to hurt Obama!”.  Good).

The GOP’s plan to help the economy by, among many other things, dialing back regulation, makes intrinsic sense if you have the faintest sense of how business works.

Most liberals do not.  They think jerbs are created when government submits a funded work order, all too often.

Worse?  When you talk to too many libs about reducing regulation, they say “Hey!  Regulation gives us safe water and clean air!”

To which one is tempted to reply “Yes, and we’re not talking, largely, about those regulations, and would it be possible to have enough government and the right amount of regulations, rather than too much of both?”

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

You thought that because the City approved all your permits, you could spend tens of thousands of dollars to open a business here?

SUCKER!

I followed the link to a PiPress story; one Kevin Vanderaa, owner of a Minneapolis bakery called “Cupcake”, wanted to open another location on Grand Avenue.  He had everything squared away – or so he thought.

We pick up with the PiPress story:

Vanderaa signed a lease in July to open in the former Wonderment Toy Store, between Lexington Parkway and Dale Street. Unlike the Minneapolis Cupcake location, this one was to have a 32-seat wine bar along with a bakery and cafe. At the time, he didn’t know that because he was going to serve beer and wine he would need more parking spaces. The city held up the business license until he could secure a shared parking arrangement or a parking variance for seven spaces required by the Board of Zoning Appeals.

“But people gotta park…!”

Have you been to Grand Avenue lately?

Bear in mind, these are jobs.  Not “infrastructure” jerbs, like the jerbs Governor Dayton is yapping about in his pork-laden bonding bill, temporary jobs that’ll go to Dayton’s union buddies and disappear as soon as the “infrastructure” is built.  Real jobs, that last as long as the business lasts.

The kind of jobs that the DFL extinguishes with gay abandon.

For your own good, of course:

“Everyone wants Cupcake on Grand Avenue,” said McLean Donnelly, vice president of the association. “But there’s a right process of setting up parking with businesses on Grand Avenue, and if the correct process had been in place, we’d be enjoying cupcakes right now.”

Let those unemployed people eat process!

In December, Vanderaa got a signed lease from nearby Anderson Cleaners for the parking spaces. The Zoning Board approved it Dec. 27 with a 10-day period for appeals. Vanderaa said he thought the appeal period began the day it was approved by the board. When 10 days had passed, he began construction. The floor was ripped out and pumping and electrical were started.

But at 5 p.m. Jan. 19, even though the Zoning Board already had given its OK, the Summit Hill Association filed an appeal, citing that Vanderaa should have had a shared parking agreement instead of a lease with Anderson Cleaners. Vanderaa was stunned because he thought the appeal period had passed. Later, he found out it hadn’t actually begun until Jan. 9, when the lease was officially voted on and signed off by the St. Paul City Council. The city then notified Vanderaa that his permit was being pulled.

Did you follow that?

Now, you might say “that’s just a bunch of city regulations” – and you’re right.  But DFL government behaves like liberal government, at all levels; regulations have boomed under Obama, under Dayton, and of course in Saint Paul under 60 years of DFL rule (with a 12 year break under Coleman and, to a lesser extent, Kelly).

Take the problems facing Mr. Vanderaa at “Cupcake”, and apply them to something in the state’s kill zone – say, the Polymet mine project up on the Iron Range.  Like Saint Paul, the Iron Range desperately needs jobs.  Like Saint Paul, there are markets to be filled on the Range; yuppie fans of cupcakes (which, MPR tells me, is the latest pop-culture fad) on Grand, a world hungry for industrial minerals like Polymet will produce).

And on the Range, as in Saint Paul, regulations – controlled, inevitably, by political as well as bureaucratic interests – stymie Polymet with every-bit-as-tight a stranglehold as they do “Cupcake On Grand”.

Donnelly said the information provided to the Board of Zoning was inconsistent and there were several unresolved technical questions the board hadn’t pinned down.

“People think we’re singling out this business,” Donnelly said. “But if Vanderaa gets a parking variance, it can impact other businesses on Grand Avenue. And a variance stays with the property and not ownership. If the parking situation is a mess, we’re stuck with it.”

Look at the bright side; nobody’s building a train down your street.

But the real point is, regulation kills jobs.  And while most of our society accepts some regulation – speed limits, pollution limits in water and air, medical licensure and the like – there’s a thick gray line between “The government and regulation we need” and “Government and regulation that really exists only to give government something to do at best, and serve as the policy manifestation of some special interest or another at worst”.

And that kills jobs faster than any “infrastructure” project can possibly replace them.

Rep. Allan Westhas words for our nation’s lefty leaders:

“Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America,” Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said at the Palm Beach County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner. West represents the district in the U.S. Congress.

Obviously he’s a racist.

A small gaggle of House Democrats, led by Dennis Kucinich, are proposing a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control corporate profits (in the energy sector, for the time being).

“But Mitch”, the liberals will respond, “it’s just Dennis Kucinich!  It doesn’t matter!”

What, you think  anything happens in Congress by accident?  Without Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer’s direct permission?

This is at best an attempt to launch a chanting point to throw at Republicans in the fall – “John Kline supports excess profits!” – and at most a testing of the legislative waters.

Chad at  Fraters Libertas points out that there is, of course, nothing reasonable about it:

If the idea of a “Reasonable Profits Boards” run by unelected government bureaucrats doesn’t make you recoil in horror, you must be ingnorant of the long history of such previous efforts by the state to dictate economic activities. But don’t you dare call this socialism. ‘Cause then, YOU would be the extremist.

Elder gets to the nature of how the Progressive Noise Machine works.  Like the “Dayton Jerbs Bill”, it’s not about jobs or excess profits; both are about creating chanting points for the left to trot out this fall.

It’s a question I see from “progressives” all the time; what harm does regulation do?

Via BigGov, we have an example right here in Saint Paul:

Verlin Stoll is a 27-year-old entrepreneurial dynamo who owns Crescent Tide funeral home in Saint Paul, Minn. Verlin has built a successful business because he offers low-cost funerals while providing high-quality service. His business is also one of the only funeral homes that benefits low-income families who cannot afford the high prices of the big funeral-home companies.

It’s not a “shovel-ready” job, but it’s a business.  One might think Minnesota’s DFL-strangled bureaucracy would appreciate another tax-paying business on the books.

Oh, no.

Verlin wants to expand his business, hire new employees and continue to offer the lowest prices in the Twin Cities, but Minnesota refuses to let Verlin build a second funeral home unless he builds a $30,000 embalming room that he will never use.

Why?

Minnesota’s law is irrational. Embalming is never required just because someone passes away and the state does not even require funeral homes to do their own embalming. In fact, it is perfectly legal to outsource embalming to a third-party embalmer. Minnesota’s largest funeral chain has 17 locations with 17 embalming rooms, but actually uses only one of those rooms.

In other words, state regulations force Stoll to build an embalming room even though state law doesn’t require anyone to be embalmed, or require him to do it in his own facility in any case.

But why?

So that the big, full-amenity funeral-home businesses can benefit from a law that drives up prices for consumers and operating expenses for competitors such as Verlin.

There you go.  Too many regulations not only pick winners and losers – they allow the winners to pick themselves.

The government should not force Minnesotans to do useless things. That is why on January 19, 2012, Verlin and the Institute for Justice challenged the law in state court.

The Minnesota Constitution protects every Minnesotan’s economic liberty, which means that it protects entrepreneurs from being burdened by legal requirements that are either useless or designed to suppress honest competition.

A victory here will not only free Verlin from an unconstitutional restraint on his economic liberty, but protect entrepreneurs across the state from pointless laws and bureaucracy.

And when you bring up stories like this, “progressives” will inevitably snivel “so you want to abolish the FDA and allow bakers to put sawdust in bread and allow child labor and let rats roam through preschools…”

Well, no.  We’re just wondering why we can’t have the government we need, and get rid of the parts we don’t?   To have the right amount of government.

Via Amy Alkon

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Long article, gist is Obama administration creating new statistical model to define “poverty” which will have the effect of making it look as if millions of people suddenly are no longer poor, just in time for the election.

Gotta be careful – we could all be “the rich” at this rate.

Without baked goods – Rosettes, krumkake, lefse, and all the other varieties of baked sweets that make Norwegian cuisine such a joy during the holidays – having a Grinch steal Christmas is really more or less irrelevant.

And “lack of butter” is the grinch this year:

An acute butter shortage in Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, has left people worrying how to bake their Christmas goodies with store shelves emptied and prices through the roof.

The shortfall, expected to last into January, amounts to between 500 and 1,000 tonnes, said Tine, Norway’s main dairy company, while online sellers have offered 500-gramme [That’s about 14.4 ounces – Ed] packs for up to 350 euros ($465).

More reasons to give thanks you’re an American…

So let’s check out this NPR story on Illinois battle to try to keep Sears’ jobs in the state, and other states’ battle to get them:

Thousands of jobs are on the line in a competition between states over the corporate headquarters of Sears. Several states are offering tax incentive packages to try to lure the company away from Illinois, including one bid from Ohio that’s worth up to $400 million.

Why would that happen?.  Can you spot it?

The Sears Holding Corp., parent company to Sears and Kmart, says it is seriously considering the offer after Illinois lawmakers failed this week to approve a package of tax incentives aimed at keeping Sears and [the Chicago Mercantile Exchange] from leaving.

The story shows the folly of “corporate welfare” – government picking winners and losers with taxpayer money. :

“I think that the proposed help for Sears is more than adequate to keep them here, and I hope we can put the movement together this month to get that job done,” he says.

Of course, corporate subsidies are sort of like narcotics; once you get through the starter drugs, you need more and more powerful stuff to keep the same buzz going.

But – and I’ll say, I was amazed at this – NPR did actually cut to the “root cause” of the issue:

Quinn and his fellow Democrats who control Illinois’ Legislature have been taking heat from the business leaders for raising the state’s income tax rates last January to help close a gaping budget deficit.

Oblique?  Of course.  But it’s further proof; taxes kill.

With the Tea Party putting the wind in its sails, the GOP scored a historic reversal last fall, turning the Obama “revolution” back on its heels.

Is the GOP establishment about to completely blow it?

Well, not if I have anything to say about it.  Needless to say, I’m going to need some help.

———-

An article in the Lehigh Morning Call indicates that the conservatives on the “Supercommittee”, including Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, are pondering a compromise on the deficit that would cut taxes (good), combined with eliminating some loopholes (not so good):

At the proposal’s core is Toomey’s economic belief that simplifying and lowering taxes will grow the economy, and in turn, a growing economy will produce more revenue. It would cut the deficit by a bit more than the $1.2 trillion required of the supercommittee, with about $700 billion coming from spending cuts. It would lower the top tax rate for individuals from 35 percent to 28 percent, and generate around $500 billion in new revenue from closing unspecified tax loopholes and reducing tax deductions….

Toomey, whose plan was presented verbally to his colleagues and not in written bill form, did not specify which spending or tax deductions to cut. In a phone interview Friday, he said his preference would be across the board reductions in deductions as opposed to eliminating any entirely.

His plan equates to $1.50 of cuts for every $1 of new revenue, he said. It’s a huge concession for Republicans, he said, considering the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had recommended $3 in cuts for each $1 of new revenue.

This is not a place for compromise.

Hugh Hewitt has some challenges – pronouncing names seems to vex him – but on this sort of subject, he’s as good as they come.  And he’s not happy:

What is crucial is that this approach be loudly and quickly rejected by the House GOP and key GOP senators as any such plan is an enormous breach of faith with the voters who sent back a new GOP majority and who will be asked in less than a year to do so again and to add enough GOP senators to make a working majority for a new Republican president. Any deal like Toomey’s would greatly injure the chances of gathering the sort of energy necessary to recreate the 2010, 1994 or 1980 sweep because it would be an obvious indictment of the credibility of the House and Senate GOP, not one member of which ran on such a platform last year.

I’m not the first to say that this – if it actually happens – is another “Read My Lips” moment; a compromise that depends on the integrity of the Democrats in keeping up their end of a bargain.  They have none, and they won’t.  Ask George H. W. Bush (and, for that matter, Ronald Reagan).

Hewitt:

Both [Jeb Hensarling and Pat Toomey] seem to have forgotten that they were not sent back to D.C. to re-engineer the government or “reform” the tax code so that millions would pay more and millions would pay less and more total revenue would flow into it, but so that spending would be drastically cut.

They were not sent there to be part of the all-knowing, all seeing Committee of Oz.

Which is, by the way, exactly what may of us knew the “Supercommittee” was going to turn into.

It’s time to bum-rush the Capitol switchboard again.

If you’re in Minnesota,

Doug Ross looks at history….

In the early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. While Great Britain’s maritime power and its far-flung empire had propelled it to a dominant position among the world’s industrialized nations, only the United States challenged Argentina for the position of the world’s second-most powerful economy.

…and finds some really ugly precedents.

Yes, we can.

Flea Partiers in Boston spit on, curse, throw bottle at Coast Guardswoman:.

The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon by Occupy Boston protesters.

The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her.

Just like the grandparents in the seventies.

Or maybe it was their parents.

Heck, maybe it’s them.