Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

The Reality of this Election $10 vs $20

Posted: October 16, 2024 by datechguy in economy, election 2024, personal
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D J Giles: Just a minute. You’re selling horses to Maximilian in preference to your own country’s army?

John Henry Thomas: No, I’m selling horses for $35 in preference to 25.

The Undefeated 1969

There are a lot of really stupid arguments being made by a lot of people who think they’re very smart concerning what this election comes down to.

But for all the idiocy that’s being spewed by “experts” let me break it down to one simple thing.

The best fish in the city of Fitchburg Massachusetts is at the 5th Street Diner. This has been true since they opened in the year of the great Ice Storm. It was true when Ed and Tina ran the place as husband and wife and it’s still true now that they have broken up and Tina works the morning and Ed the evenings. No matter how you slice it they have the best fish and chips and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

But if you want to understand what his election is all about I can’t think of a better example then the fish and chips at the dinner.

Four years ago when Donald Trump was president I could go down to the 5th street diner and get my fish and chips and a diet coke with a ten dollar bill in my pocket (they don’t take plastic)

When I got the same meal today four years later, it cost me a $20.

That is what this election is about.

Choose wisely

Under the Fedora: From the Waitress’ mouth, No Interest, Tre Sorelle to Billy Bob’s, Forester, Cromwell and Graves Who and finally the Bright Side of a Split

Posted: August 29, 2024 by datechguy in culture, economy, under the fedora
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Now that I’m used to getting up at 5:14 AM for work I decided instead of dropping off the car last night for the oil change and general check before the inspection sticker to drop off my car at my mechanic’s early this morning and walk to a local diner where the waitress was surprised to see me alone as I’m normally there with my wife (off at work) or my priest (saying mass). As the election is close and she sees people daily I asked her what she was seeing.

She said things tended to vary depending on what people do but a lot of their regulars were doing OK (lots of contractors) and that in general for their base it wasn’t as bad as it’s been.

It wasn’t the answer I expected but that’s fine. I ask questions to get data point not confirm prejudices or advance agendas.

After breakfast I walked back down to the mechanics garage. He had since arrived and said my car would be ready around 9:30. When I returned after a sojourn at my sons house nearby the car was ready and would despite its age pass Massachusetts rigorous inspection on it’s first try.

But the real story came when we discussed the idea of him getting an apprentice as he had been doing this for 30 years. He told me that young folks simply weren’t interested in doing the work because that’s what the job was, long work and the few that did were snatched up by dealerships that could pay more.

It will be a sad day for me when he eventually retires, but I suspect by that time my driving days will be done.

After my inspection I ran some errands and headed out for lunch. On my way I spotted something interesting. A while back the daughters of Sabino the baker whose bread we used to buy as a kid and whose bakery burned down in a fire in my early teens, opened up a place in Leominster named Tre Sorelle which was an Italian food and items specialty shop. Sabino himself used to come in once or twice a week and I was able to buy the bread I had as a youth and give my sons a taste of it. The place closed a long time ago and has been empty, drove by today and saw it’s been transformed to a fast food place called Billy Bob’s.

Times, tastes and populations change.

Speaking of tastes changing I found myself in the mood to re-read Bernard Cromwell’s Sharpe’s Eagle or Robert Graves’ I Claudius or one of the later C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books during lunch. As I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes before they opened and there was a Barnes and Noble’s 3 minutes away I ducked over to search for one of the three to pick up.

When I checked the fiction section the only one of the Sharpe’s books there was Sharpe’s Tiger the only Hornblower Book was Mr. Midshipman Hornblower which I had at home & wasn’t in the mood for and neither I Claudius or the sequel Claudius the God were in sight.

As little as 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable for a fiction section of a large bookstore to be deficient in any of those volumes but again, time and tastes have passed me by.

Finally you might remember the rather ugly split between Project Veritas and James O’Keefe who was the founder and face of the organization.

As you might have heard James being James he’s has continued on with his work even infiltrating the DNC this month and exposing some very iffy stuff from Act Blue concerning donations details of which you can find at OMG (O’Keefe Media Group).

but apparently Project Veritas is also still soldiering on and has an expose with a Lawyer who appeared for the FDA admitting on an undercover video that they abused their authority

I’m pleased Veritas is soldering on as it’s better to have more than one group doing that job that the media used to do.

Follow the Money Gaza Edition

Posted: August 28, 2024 by datechguy in economy, middle east
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Antonia: Nobody wants to work the high risk planets like Earth. Part of the incentive package is that the government will match any insurance payout for accident or death.

6th Doctor: Money! This [murder] has all been about money, filthy lucre.

Doctor Who, The Condemned 2008

About a dozen years ago back when I was doing door to door pitching for advertisers for the old DaTechGuy on DaRadio show I found myself in a Doctor’s office. He told me that his practice was restricted to immigrants, legal or otherwise, who were covered by Mass Health (our state’s universal healthcare system). Remembering the nature of my grandparents and the Italian immigrants who tended to downplay sickness I knew I expressed surprise that he could make a practice out of it. He told me that it was exactly the opposite, that the current batch of immigrants came in for every little thing and that he was constantly billing the state for it. As he put it, looking at my city, anyone who didn’t build his business model on this was a fool.

That’s what I thought about when I saw this write-up about Gaza:

Under the rule of Hamas in Gaza, beginning in 2005, the smuggling tunnel industry in Rafah (from Egypt) flourished, which in addition to arms also transported goods into Gaza and controlled the markets in Gaza. The tunnels served as a gold mine for a large group of Gazans, controlled by Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Dozens of them became millionaires (!) from that corrupt underground activity. from

Like Democrat non-profits in the US they didn’t let a crisis go to waste.

Gaza’s millionaires live in mansions overlooking the beach in Gaza, with luxury furniture smuggled from Europe and the Gulf countries, they are surrounded by servants, drivers, private tutors for their children, security and maintenance personnel. They drive in luxury cars, some of them own yachts in Qatar, they eat in prestigious restaurants and go on prestigious vacations all over the world, their children study in academies abroad. In all the mansions – there are underground shelters for protection against war.

In Gaza the wealth is not equally distributed, there is a layer of millionaires, even billionaires, who got rich from corruption and the industry of death and terrorism, many senior Hamas officials and their associates simply steal the donations money and the Qatari money that is transferred to support the Gazan population – into their own pockets. There is an intermediate layer that also prospers indirectly from these industries and the wages that Hamas pays its members, and there is a layer of very poor unemployed people who are completely dependent on them.

Gaza is neither an “open air prison” nor a “concentration camp”, it is tragically a society ruled by corrupt leaders who created extreme class gaps and send the poor to die for the continued maintenance of the bloody terrorist industry and the donations that enrich them personally beyond imagination.

And don’t think for one moment that the NGO’s and the UN administrators who are constantly seeking money here are not getting their cut. Again like US pols who divert taxfunds to dem NGO and reap campaign contributions from it.

Remember that the pullout of Israel from Gaza was to demonstrate to the world Israel’s good faith, instead all it did was create a money pit for those who wanted to get rich off terror. An entire economy built on death, sort of like the abortion industry.

What would they do once Israel was gone?

Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: Playoff Bound, GOP Should Do Some Housework, Wow If True, The Bright Side of Inflation, Pill Popping

Posted: August 17, 2024 by datechguy in abortion, economy, election 2024, politics, Sports
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The Indiana Heat of the WNBA are currently in the #7 playoff spot, a half game ahead of the #8 team and a full 3 games ahead of the #9 team which means that barring disaster over their last 13 games Caitlin Clark is going to take a team that hasn’t made it to the playoffs for nearly a decade back into the WNBA playoffs.

Can’t wait to see the ratings.

Kamala is busy stealing Trump ideas promising to do all kinds of things that she hasn’t bothered to do before.

If I’m the GOP I’m quickly passing a bill to make tips exempt from federal taxes and to advance the credit that Trump proposed that Kamala is pushing as well.

Get the both passed and let the dems in the senate kill them the week of their convention.

At least that’s what I’d do.

I can not emphasize how important if true this is

Epstein explained how the prosecutors tried to get him to give testimony to support Trump’s impeachment, even if it wasn’t true. Here is Tartaglione’s description of their conversation:

He [Epstein] said, ‘I don’t know anything. . . . But the government told me I don’t have to prove what I say about Trump as long as Trump’s people can’t disprove it.’ I [Tartaglione] said ‘Yes, he’s the President of the United States. His people are the FBI.’ He [Epstein] said, ‘That’s what I said, and they said, no, the FBI’s our people, not his people.’

It is worth noting that Section 1622 of the U.S. Criminal Code (Title 18) provides as follows:

§1622. Subornation of perjury

Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

There have been no follow up interviews with Tartaglione. Jessica reports that the day after she posted the audio of her interview with him, he was transferred out of the Brooklyn MDC, where he had been for eight years, to an unknown destination, and has not been heard from since:

I miss the days when the FBI was actually busy protecting Americans and following the law, assuming they were actually doing that in those days.

I’ve spent a lot of years comparing the Abortion industry to the Slavery industry and there is one thing that they both have in common.

It’s all about the profit and apparently the profit margin just isn’t there anymore

There’s some real irony here. Pro-life groups have spent decades campaigning against abortion and especially against late-term abortion. But it seems many clinics (like the ones in New York mentioned above)  are now feeling pressure to stop performing these late abortions, not because of a change in the law but because of Bidenflation. I guess that’s what they call a silver lining.

I’m not a fan of Biden/Harris inflation but if the higher prices are saving kids lives I’ll take the hit.

For 40 years I have been picking up meds for DaWife but have never had to take any myself.

This ended today as apparently my blood pressure which has been historically low all my life has shot up to levels so high that my wife is shocked I haven’t had a stroke.

This is not a huge surprise as my father had issues with both his heart and high blood pressure and died at 65, then again he was a heavy smoker till he was 45 and a heavy drinker till about 50 and I’ve never smoked and I drink so infrequently (maybe a dozen drinks a year) that most people think I’m a teetotaler.

I think not having regular meds till 61 isn’t bad but it’s a dramatic change for me and given the BP levels I’ve been showing over the last two weeks I guess it’s necessary but I would have liked to make it to retirement before I needed meds.

It is what it is and after all a man has to die of SOMETHING

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