One of the best parts of our day are the crank letters. Because of the nature of this site and the high intelligence level of our readership, we get some superb cranks stopping by. Ghost, for example, has been an operative with us longer than anyone can remember, and he swung by the Castle to leave a few thoughts burning in our mailbox.

Dread Czar, It has been a quiet and busy three years since my last missive, and I am not pleased with the state of things in the home country. I apologize for the long silence, but running a small business growing into a small-to-medium business is quite difficult. As you requested, I successfully infiltrated the ranks of management, and have gained some perspective which was most likely your intent. The more time I spend with Millennial generation, the less I like them. I have noticed, that they have the tendency to half-ass most things, which chaps my ectoplasm something fierce. Additionally, a number of my more youthful employees while having an exuberance useful in our industry, are quite possibly the least responsible people I have ever met. Even hosting financial advisers at the cost of our company to help them, they still end up investing their paychecks in illicit substances (in my state anyway) and spend more to keep up appearances than they can afford, leading to frequent requests for advance paychecks when they haven’t even worked off the last one.

The Czar is indeed quite interested in the mass psychology of generations. Yes, there is absolutely no science behind it, but yet, there it is: every generation seems to have a cultural mindset unique to itself that’s so compact it can be isolated and identified.

Being impossibly old, we have seen a number of generations come and go. Quite so, the Czar remembers when Gen Xers entered the work force. Talk about a pain—the Gen Xers hated doing pointless stuff, even though we all know work is filled with pointless stuff. Over time, however, the Gen Xers figured that out and stopped with the eye rolls and the glaring slow burns, and got to work and got pretty good at it. The Millennials, however, haven’t quite made that change yet but are getting pretty close. Yes, they show up late and leave early—but send one of them a text at 11:04 at night and you get a response a minute later. They don’t work 9 to 5, it’s true: they assume they’re always on the clock. If you plan accordingly, you can get a lot of productivity from them because they never turn off their damn technology.

Yes, they dress funny, and spend an entire paycheck on clothes that would have cost a tenth as much had they purchased them from the Sears catalog in 1981. But in the late 80s and 90s, the Czar remembers that Gen Xers were blowing their paychecks on futons and CDs. It’s something you go through.

The Boomers are the worst. What a bunch of whiny babies. The sub-generations in between them tend to be your most reliable employees, students, and voters.

I am severely displeased with the political landscape as well. The parties seem to have put forward all of their faux candidates and just now realized we will get stuck with the most inadequate people you could have named for the job. Not to disparage successful individuals, but being successful at things like murder, and alienating literally half the population does not mean you should be leader of the not-currently-so-free world. In the words of my brother, Armed Services Ghost 2 (the better one), Hillary should be in prison, and I am afraid of Trump. However, the more I watch and listen, the more I see who is pushing what agenda, and one that has been ranted about by your cohorts. The media controlling their narrative, are pushing this endless cycle of garbage at people. I hate the terminology of “Big <insert noun here>” but I am inclined to blame them for this endless shitshow. It’s enough to turn a ghost’s hair grey, and has. Apologies for my language, Dread Czar, I will schedule an appointment for flogging, so do not trifle yourself. I find that I am having to listen to NPR to even get an opposite view point to news sites or Hades forbid, social media, and even then they are all just one contentious lot. There is an old adage that I find appropriate, and applicable. The one who wants the job the most, should under no circumstances get it.

Agreed. There was an Illinois businessman, Jim Oberweis, who ran for every Republican position available, every election. One year, he was running for Senate. Defeated in the primary, he announced he would run for a Representative position…until he was defeated in that primary. No matter—he’d run for something else. He was very much an example of a person who wanted the job so much that he should be denied the position. Illinois voters invariably concur with this sentiment.

As you note, there’s no shortage of outrage here at the Castle regarding the utterly incompetent leadership of the Republican party, who went from dozens of Coolidge-esque conservatives and Reaganish moderates, who would easily have made America a 21st Century powerhouse, into a pathetic frat mixer, and will now allow the worst candidate the Democrats found since Dukakis to walk into the White House. You might survive one disaster, safety experts remind us, but not two in a row.

On another subject, in spite of everyone flouting Obamacare as financially ruinous to small businesses, I am pleased to report the opposite has occurred within my direct overview. Far more ruinous is the concept of Universal Basic Income, which Finland is currently considering an experiment with if you recall. I see one huge flaw within this system, being that governments are supported by their people, and once the government has to support everyone, there is no sustainable way to keep it that I can forsee.

The Czar is on record for predicting that UBI will never happen here because it would eliminate thousands of government jobs. Worry not: be more concerned with any further dickering with the minimum wage, which will be popular until the horror kicks in weeks later.

You may be pleased to note that I am currently utilizing my Second Amendment right to bear arms with my CCW permit, and damn the people who want to take that away from me. —Ghost

Definitely some congratulations are warranted. Some of us Gormogons are concealed carriers but like we do to the bad guys, we’ll make you guess which ones. Fortunately, despite the media’s tidal wave of persistent anti-gun messaging, there’s little doubt that Americans overwhelmingly support firearm ownership, and a quickly growing percentage supports not just CCW but even open carry. Crime is down as a result. Heck, the Czar knows some pretty anti-gun people who revealed to him last Sunday that, well, maybe concealed carry is working better than anyone expected.

Good on ya.