This week I picked up my son from work and had him pump gas for me at the station near my church on Mechanic Street in Fitchburg because it’s the cheapest gas in town. The price was $273.9 and as I was almost empty it took a lot to fill it.
The very next day gas was at $269.9 which both annoyed me as I had filled up the day before but is a huge sign. If that price continues to drop it will mean an awful lot of extra cash in people’s pockets & a lowering of costs to every single business that gets a delivery by truck.
If this becomes a trend then it could be the sign of the turn in the economy that will change the dynamic in this country for 2026 or 2028.
Last year’s Christmas peak season, the final one of the Biden years was the shortest and weakest in my decade at the warehouse that I work at.
After dropping from 3 local warehouses to 1 during the 2nd year of Biden and losing our 2nd shift in the 3rd Biden year, last year’s peak lasted from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. By Tuesday every temp was gone and peak was finished with voluntary days off being offered.
Back during Trump’s first term we would be flat out for 3-4 weeks from Black Friday on, we’d have 10 hour days and at least one mandatory overtime day a week. We would bring in 100’s of temps to keep up with the work who would usually be kept till about the 14th or 20th of December with about a tenth of them, the best, kept on for the returns season who would eventually become full time employees.
In the first “peak” of the 2nd Trump term we’re not at that level but numbers were higher than expected and our temps were still here on last Friday (albeit they left two hours early that day). Word is we will be busy next week.
Even if the temps aren’t there tomorrow we would have kept them a full two weeks longer than last year. Does that mean the economy has turned around? I can’t say but it’s a data point.
There has been one more interesting sign of the times.
I generally try to leave for work by 6:20 AM to be at my place of work by 6:50-6:55 for my 7 AM shift.
Now when I worked every Sunday I knew I could leave as late as 6:30-6:35 and still (barring accidents on the highways) get to work in that time period but as a rule if it’s a school day and I leave for work anytime after 6:25 AM getting to work on time is iffy and leaving at 6:30 meant I’d have to punch in before I head to the cafeteria to put my lunch in the cooler to hit the grace period and have any shot of avoiding being late.
For reasons I won’t get into I’ve been running very late this week not leaving before 6:25 AM four of five days and leaving as late as 6:33 one day this week. Yet every single day the traffic has been so light that I’ve made it to work with plenty of time to spare. In fact the day I left on time I had so much spare time that I almost forgot to punch in as I sat waiting for the day to start.
Now Massachusetts being as blue as it gets has been fighting back on ICE’s attempts to apprehend illegal immigrants but that hasn’t stopped raids in Boston, Worcester and even in my city of Fitchburg from taking place.
I have no idea if this has effected the traffic coming north from Worcester or east from Gardner. People might be staying home because of the cold but I find the sudden end to the normal morning congestion on school days…interesting.
One of the advantages of age is being able to recognize patterns in history repeating not from books but from memory.
Back in the late 70’s the Carter economy was in the toilet which led to Ronald Reagan’s famous words:
As you know Reagan beat Carter and the economy took off, but it didn’t do so right away. The first year of Reagan was a tough one as he got his agenda passed and it wasn’t until 1982 that we saw signs of what would become one of the best economies of my lifetime. Alas for Reagan it didn’t happen fast enough for him to keep the Senate but it did happen fast enough for him to crush Mondale in 1984 so completely that even the blue states of Massachusetts, New York & California voted for him.
The Trump recovery which I’ve noted some signs of in this post is coming. I don’t know if it will come fast enough to save the House in 2026 but I know when it’s in full swing it’s going to make JD Vance a tough customer to beat in 2028, particularly if the best the left can come up with is Gavin Newsome or an AOC wannabe.
I feel very optimistic about the future & I suspect that as I near my retirement my country will be in good hands.
A few days ago I saw this tweet from Benny Johnson:
While I have seen more than my share of actual miracles from God (after a while they become almost mundane) this is not a miracle of God it’s a function of math as I noted in my reply:
For the last 60 years the left has promoted birth control, abortion, homosexuality & transgenderism even to the point of spaying their own kids. When you do that for two generations the population of people who believe what you do naturally decreases.
Meanwhile I’ve seen over the last few years a large rise in large families at church not quite at the 1940’s & 1950’s levels but getting there. Put simply Christians keep having kids and thus naturally are starting to catch up on unbelievers who don’t.
If the westerners had kids at the same rate they did in 1930 Islamic immigration even at the levels they have in Europe & Canada would have little effect.
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