Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: Press Conference Nostalgia, Not just Jeff’s Fault, The Media Anti-Anti’s out in Full Force, Economy Still Rolling and Getting What you vote for

Posted: June 28, 2025 by datechguy in economy, politics, under the fedora
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Watching Trump’s hour long press conference yesterday made me nostalgic for the two press conferences that I attended as credentialed press and was able to ask questions at. Both times the questions were pertinent to the coverage I was reporting and were non hostile and elicited complements to then candidate Trump.

It is the closest I’ve come to missing journalism since I closed the business, however I still hold to historical distinctions that can never be taken away from me.

  1. The first new media reporter to question candidate Donald Trump at a press conference.
  2. The only person ever to question Donald Trump in a fedora and a Doctor Who scarf.

Yeah I suppose it’s vanity but hey I’m an old man at retirement age got to have something to crow about.

Speaking of those old days as a regular journalist one of the primary reasons why I finally gave it up was the crash in my traffic and thus my revenue, which I’ve always presumed was primaraly due to my reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein story before other people were touching it and while the Clintons still held power.

Now we discover that specific efforts were being made to choke off revenue from sites that supported Donald Trump (thus my being banned from Youtube when I was within 5 followers of being able to monetize my videos.

I imagine there might be a class action suit to be joined someday and perhaps I might do so when the time comes but the wiser move is likely to just pray for those affected and those involved. At my age you generally can’t go wrong with prayer.

A long time ago Jay Nordlinger wrote about the anti-anti’s basically people who hated Reagan and his supporters so much that they defended communism against his attacks against it. The were essentially anti anti-communist.

We saw this return with Trump and never was it better illustrated this week when you had media openly defending Iran and attacking the raid that destroyed their nuclear capability. Trump being less kindly than Reagan and more of a counter-puncher simply destroyed them over it and members of his administration jumped right into the beatdown.

They’re also out in full force over the NY Democrat primary as well with the media going all out to defend the “defund the police, empty the jails, pro-illegal immigrant anti-semite Islamist who the Democrats nominated.

In the end it’s like a variation of the old Golda Mier saying about the arabs.

We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.

The left hates us more than they love their country or even themselves.

Wages keep outpacing inflation which has dropped to almost nothing despite the media insisting otherwise. To quote Don Surber (who you should read daily):

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that personal income increased 0.8 percent in April. Inflation rose 0.1 percent. That’s a net gain of more than 500 bucks. A year’s worth of April 2025s is worth $6,000 as inflation would fall to that 1.4% rate Trump bequeathed to the auto pen of FJB on January 20, 2021.

It is too early to declare victory for Trumponomics, but America seems to be rid of the covid era and is back in business. Tariffs and ICE are doing the trick.

The Wall Street Journal reported, “The U.S. trade deficit collapsed in April, as tariffs took a huge bite out of imports.

Add to that record stock markets numbers (which the MSM aren’t all that interested in) and you have the makings of a very strong record for the GOP to run on for years.

That’s why the left is so desperate to stop the Trump Tax Bill, if those get enshrined into law it will be tough to get the GOP out of office.

Nothing succeeds like success.

As you’ve likely heard Democrats in NYC has decided to nominate a Socialist, Marxist, antisemite who wants to defund the police.

Some people are surprised, I don’t see why. You’ve been chasing out producers and job creators for a decade why wouldn’t the socialists who remain vote for one of their own.

The main problem is that as Margaret Thatcher noted eventually you run out of other people’s money and this is a time where people can do a lot of the financial work that generates dollars in NY remotely and elsewhere.

As a rule you get the government you deserve

Ironically this is like what you have in Iran in the sense that a lot of people in 1978 didn’t like the Shah and decided they’d give the Ayatollah a go.

Let’s hope Mamdani doesn’t do the same for NYC but if he does, it’s on the voters.

Five Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora Trump Completely Unafraid, Unexpectedly again, Anti Catholics Upset, A Minority View and A Big Baseball Surprise

Posted: May 4, 2025 by datechguy in baseball, dynasty baseball, economy, fun, under the fedora
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It’s amazing watching Donald Trump constantly owning the MSM during hostile interviews.

What a difference when you don’t need them for exposure.

During the Biden years it was constant that various figures kept coming in lower than “expert” expectations, and then were revised down months later.

We’re only 3 months into Trump and already we’ve had two months of Trump beating “expert” expectations.

And no I’m not sick of winning.

The funniest thing about the Trump as Pope thing isn’t JD. Vance’s excellent response to Bill Kristol.

The funniest thing about the Trump as Pope thing is the people acting the most insulted are those who hate the church the most.

Not any outrage over Washington state passing a law to violate the seal of confession but a Trump as Pope image, vapors!

I might be in the minority here but I think this season of Doctor Who has been surprisingly good.

There hasn’t been a lot of preaching or woke just stories and when Davies team decides they want to tell a good story they are certainly capable of doing so.

Let’s hope this continues.

Finally I haven’t written much about my 1973 baseball league but with 57 games to go I find myself two games up leading my division thanks to a 7-3 run by me and a 1-9 run by the team that was ahead of me.

In the 5 years of our league no team has ever repeated as a division winner although a few have managed to make the playoffs in multiple years in a row. This difficulty is by design is VERY unusual for a team to repeat in this league

Mind you every other division winner has a better record than me as do 2 wild card teams so if I hold on I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere but still, not bad at all!

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.

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