Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

What I saw during a side visit at CPAC 2018 to a Pinball Spot in Bethesda is finally showing in polling…

Posted: October 9, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, elections, politics, special events
Tags: , ,

In 2018 I was at CPAC with my sons when the younger seeing that I was, as usual, driving myself to a ridiculous point suggested doing something different, so we went on a little trip to a pinball place in Bethesda where I found what I thought was the most significant interview of the trip.

and wrote why this interview was so significant

Now a person like my self who has covered angry mobs last year, and is constantly bathed in the political fight, not to mention the media narrative of absolute Trump / GOP hatred and constantly in the company of activists both at home and at CPAC,  might expect a Democrat woman of color living in a blue state to give answers fitting the us vs them narrative, particularly if filmed and in the presence of her friends.
She did not.
She gave the President mixed marks, complemented him on keeping campaign promises that he made to his people, noted that as a Democrat she’d like to see some more moderate moves. Her answers had none of the rancor or the division that the media has pushed on us for the year or that I’ve seen from angry activists. They were completely reasonable answers that would not have been out of place several decades ago in a saner time when I remembered people could disagree and get along. In other words they reflected who she is, a normal American trying to get by whose primary focus is real life instead of manufactured outrage.

Remember this was 2018, Mueller was still out there, plenty of people thought there was lot of “there” there. Stormy Daniels was still out there as was the creepy porn lawyer. In fact we were still in the pre-Kavanaugh era. In other words the entire spectacle had not yet blown up on the left.

This interview, given in public on film in front of friends made me draw two conclusions, the second being the most significant

  1. Despite what our media friends are trying to sell us, Regular Democrats, even democrats in a blue place like Maryland are not wedded to the Peloxi/CNN/MSNBC line and are seeing this president for what he is rather than what they are being told he is.
  2. People like Lea are winnable and the media narrative is all about convincing us she is not.

When we got back to CPAC I couldn’t wait to upload the video and rushed to tell every person I ran into that this was incredibly important and tremendously significant. Nobody seemed to care, we were in the CPAC bubble which meant all eyes were on the pols and the activists there, not to mention the President’s upcoming speech. The idea that this might be a signal of an opening to the black community for the President and the opposition of blacks to the president might be softer than other think was something totally off everyone’s radar.

Not anymore:

From David Bernstein at Instapundit

BUT MUH NARRATIVE: 32% of African American men would vote for Donald Trump over a generic Democratic nominee.130

Well what do you know, I guess this info is out of the bubble now, and if it’s true then the danger to the Democrats goes well beyond this election.

But there is more to this poll story than meets the eye that doesn’t bode well for the left, but that’s a story for tomorrow’s post.

Massachusetts New Across the Board Pay Cut

Posted: October 2, 2019 by datechguy in business, economy
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Two days at work there were passing out a sheet to employees to read and sign. Since almost the entire workforce is Spanish speaking they only had one English language copy so I didn’t get the form until yesterday.

Apparently Massachusetts with it’s veto proof Democrat majorities in both the house and senate decided that having NY & CT nextdoor is enough to keep business in the state so they passed a law mandating PAID leave, Up to 20 weeks for having kids and up to 26 weeks for a medical condition, up to a max of $840 a week (That’s $42K a year). Under the law the employer is responsible for 60% of this dough while the state is responsible for the other 40%, but where does the state get this money?

Well it gets it from workers. A deductions of .75% from your paycheck will be starting shortly to pay for this and oddly enough, the deduction is coming two years before this goes into effect (I suspect to make it look like it covers the costs) so you get to pay for this plan for over a year before anyone gets a penny.

Now when I read this aloud and mentioned what it actually involved the people around me seemed to think it was a good idea. The chance to get a full paycheck for 20+ weeks without working sounded really good, at least they did until I pointed out some basic math that I did in my head.

The current minimum wage in MA is $12 and goes to up .75 each Jan 1st till it hits $15 an hour. Because of the Trump economy and the difficulty in getting workers the temps are getting as much as $13 an hour. So here is the math:

$13.00 & .0075 = .0975

When people hear “three quarters of one percent” they think less than a penny, but oddly enough when I told the person working next to me that thanks to this new law he would now be making .10 less an hour he attitude toward the new law changed dramatically. People understand the difference between getting ten cents an hour less than not.

He objected to the boss who reiterated that the cost was only three quarters of one percent which seemed to placate him even though that amount was still the same .10 an hour less.

I wonder how many tens of thousands of people in the state never even thought about how much that pay cut is, or more importantly how much that pay cut is going to become once people start making claims in two years.

Closing thought: In a Trump economy that’s booming, a state like Massachusetts and the business located there might, just might be growing enough to absorb all of these costs. What happens when he and the policies that have produced all this growth are gone and these bills still have to be paid?

The New Green Deal – Starvation

Posted: September 26, 2019 by julietteochieng in economy, News/opinion, politics

by 3Planets

Many, if not all the Democratic Party candidates vying for nomination for President, to a man, woman or other, support the removal and criminalization of the internal combustion engine.  The cost to the environment like totally outweighs our need to grow and harvest food.  You know, the soy beans and veggies necessary to support life on earth as they know it.

It wasn’t too long ago – just in the beginning of the 1900’s – that having enough food was a real concern.  Does anybody remember the election slogan “a chicken in every pot”? Bonus points if you can name the politician who said it.  Hunger does exist in America.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of just two years ago, 12.3 percent of American households remain food insecure – meaning that 1 in 8 households in the United States had difficulty at some time during the year in providing enough food for all their members.

These Democrat Party Candidates all support the starvation of low income and most unfortunate of our country!  How can I say that?

To understand, one only needs to visit a farm – a place as alien as a church to the wonderful slaver socialist city dwellers, during the harvest.  But be aware that the farmers, whose livelihoods depend upon a quick and successful harvest, may not be too happy to see you.  The harvest is the short – a matter of hours – time in which farmers have to get their ripe crops in before the snow falls, rains come and the crop begins to rot in the fields.  Without the use of many sophisticated, expensive mechanical devices known as “trucks”, “tractors”, “harvesters”, “combines” and a plethora of vehicles seen only on farms, the agricultural revolution with the delivered promise of inexpensive, nutritious food to feed rich and poor across our country and the world will be impossible.

You Can’t Eat Debt

Posted: September 15, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, trade
Tags: , ,

Col Von Luger: Flyers are gentlemen, not peasants to dig in the earth. So I am surprised.

Group Captain McDonald: The English have always been keen on gardening.

Col Von Luger: Oh Yes, but flowers? It this not so?

McDonald: You can’t eat flowers

Col Von Luger: Good Point

The Great Escape 1963

 

I must confess that I was concerned when President Trump started slapping Tariff’s on China having been taught from youth that tariff’s had been one of the underlying causes of the Great Depression and knowing that China has been a great holder of our debt.

His confidence in his ability to manage our trade problems apparently has not been misplaced:

China will exempt some agricultural products from additional tariffs on U.S. goods, including pork and soybeans, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Friday, in the latest sign of easing Sino-U.S. tensions before a new round of talks aimed at curbing a bruising trade war.

This development is of some disappointment to those looking to defeat him politically but not to producers of Pork and soybeans:

“The importance of this market to U.S. pork producers is clear,” said National Pork Producers Council President and North Carolina hog farmer David Herring. “U.S. pork exports could single handedly make a huge dent in the trade imbalance with China.”


An outbreak of deadly African swine fever, which has cut China’s pig herd by a third since mid-2018, has propelled Chinese pork prices to record levels and left the country in need of replacement supplies from overseas. U.S. pork exports to China so far this year have largely fallen short of expectations.

Ed Morrissey sees what it means.

The concessions on pork and soybeans are significant, much more so than a two-week delay in tariffs. It signals that China can’t afford to deal with a lengthy trade war, especially not this year. They may not like it, but they still need to trade in order to feed their massive population, and China might have to get used to fully opening their markets and complying with agreements to do so.

President Trump, being more successful and more experienced in business than myself and recognizing that checking China’s expansion without military confrontation was a vital American interest apparently understands one of basic facts of life, a fact that he as a person who was born to wealth might not be expected to remember.

The most imposing nation no matter how large a standing army or how broad a shadow it casts on their neihbors, is impotent if it can’t feed it’s people.

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