Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

Risk and Reward Under the Fedora: Gun Crime, Electric Car Compliance Credits, China Lab Theory, Victory Speeches and Jesus and Gaza

Posted: January 18, 2024 by datechguy in business, crime, economy, elections, Israel vs Hamas, media, medicine, middle east, politics, primaries, under the fedora
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A report out of Florida tells us that despite dire warnings from the left about “constitutional carry” adopted in Florida concerning violence the opposite effect has taken place:

Now, more than six months after the law’s adoption, evidence contradicts Democrats’ fearmongering that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a loaded gun for self-defense would result in more “senseless tragedies.”

Since the legalization of constitutional carry in July 2023, Florida’s biggest cities saw a significant decrease in violent crimes, including shootings. In Jacksonville, murders and homicides dropped 6 percent in 2023 from the previous year.

Apparently in Florida the increased risk of getting shot by an armed citizen is no longer low enough to justify the reward of crime to many. Fortunately for criminals NYC doesn’t have said risk.

The move by Hertz to sell of 20,000 electric cars (just to Whom they will sell them to and how much on the dollar they will get we don’t know) illustrates something that drivers who jumped on the electric car bandwagon have been discovering to their regret. The risk of not having sufficient battery to get where you are going in the time allotted does not match the reward of the “efficiency” of an electric car.

And apparently it turns out that said “efficiency” has as much science behind it as the 6′ social distancing business:

When carmakers test gasoline-powered vehicles for compliance with the Transportation Department’s fuel-efficiency rules, they must use real values measured in a laboratory. By contrast, under an Energy Department rule, carmakers can arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67. This means that although a 2022 Tesla Model Y tests at the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon in a laboratory (roughly the same as a hybrid), it is counted as having an absurdly high compliance value of 430 mpg. That number has no basis in reality or law.

For exaggerating electric-car efficiency, the government rewards carmakers with compliance credits they can trade for cash. Economists estimate these credits could be worth billions: a vast cross-subsidy invented by bureaucrats and paid for by every person who buys a new gasoline-powered car.

If you ever wondered why carmakers were willing to take the risk of making cars people didn’t want to buy without the reward of actual buyers, now you know.

The times are a changing for the government COVID crowd who forced all kinds of rules upon us while censoring those who might speak out about risks.

One of those bits of censorship were hitting or de-platforming folks who theorized that COVID came from a lab leak in China. The whole Fauci team was big on going after such folks with the help of a compliant media.

One of that team doing the insisting was Dr. Francis Collins who had no problem calling such statements a “very destructive conspiracy” for years. But apparently the reward of such a stance disappears when one is asked about it under pains of perjury when testifying under oath:

In a significant U-turn, House Republicans who led the hearing revealed that Dr Collins, 73, told them that the lab leak hypothesis was not a conspiracy theory.

His answers were similar to those of Dr Fauci, who sat for a marathon 14 hours of questioning last week when he finally acknowledged that the lab leak theory — that Covid escaped from a Chinese biolab — should not have been so easily dismissed.

As we mentioned on Tuesday President Donald Trump decisively won the Iowa Caucus losing only a single county in the state (which by an odd coincidence ran out of party change forms giving democrats who had no caucus to attend a chance to influence the GOP results)

While I found the result interesting compared to 2016 given that Donald Trump now had a record as president vs speculation as to how he would govern. CNN cut away from his speech right away and MSNBC made it a point to not carry his victory speech at all.

“At this point in the evening the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech,” Maddow began, oddly avoiding Trump’s name. “We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech, if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.”

I find this the most interesting thing of all because the small MSNBC audience is about as far left as they come yet even among such an audience they find the risk of such people hearing Donald Trump speaking live so great that they dare not allow him to challenge the narrative that they’ve been sold.

That’s really something.

Finally as Israel continues to discover more and more terror infrastructure in Gaza and continues to systematic take out both Hamas and the terror infrastructure pressure continues to rise among western allies of Hamas and Joe Biden in particular to hold Israel back before the destruction of Hamas becomes complete.

Hamas apparently did not foresee this result figuring they would be able to weather an Israeli response in their incredible terror tunnel network. (Frankly they should all go to an underdeveloped nation that needs miners as they certainly know about digging) which is odd because Hamas claims Jesus as a prophet and apparently didn’t take these words of Christ on risk and reward to heart:

Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.

Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.

Luke 14 28-32

Of course if Hamas actually followed Christ they would be taking the whole “love your enemies” business seriously and stop trying to slaughter Jews, but to Hamas et/al the risk of defeat, humiliation and the devastation and death of their people does not compare to the reward of slaughtered Jews.

(At least among those who do not have billions in cash and live far from Gaza that is).

What Are You Going to Believe What we Say or What We Do?

Posted: January 13, 2024 by datechguy in economy, media
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Reality doesn’t care what anyone’s political agenda is.

Peter Ingemi

MSNBC Joe Scarborough on the economy:

Meanwhile at their parent company NBC:

Universal Music, NBC Layoffs Join Tech, Media 2024 Job Cuts. (via Instapundit)

Hey just because we’re cutting jobs and laying off people doesn’t mean that the economy isn’t the envy of the world. All you plebs who think otherwise just because your companies are laying off or closing warehouses that were booming in the Trump years just don’t see the big picture. Plenty of people are doing well, look at the NFL, they’re not trying to trim staff, oh wait…

While the NFL’s postseason is days away, it is layoffs, rather than playoffs, that are a principal concern within the league’s Park Avenue, Manhattan headquarters. Industry sources say that 200-plus tenured league employees across departments were emailed a voluntary buyout package Monday. When adding age and years of service, any employee with a total of 70 or above qualified for the package, sources said.

Among the benefits offered in the package: three weeks salary for every year served, plus bonuses. Employees have until late February to take the buyout, sources said. The Super Bowl is Feb. 11. 

I’ll give myself the last word:

Terror for Fun and Profit

Posted: December 5, 2023 by datechguy in economy, Israel, Israel vs Hamas
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Had a different topic in mind until I saw this:

Five days before the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, a warning may have appeared on stock exchanges.

A study by researchers from Columbia University and NYU called “Trading on Terror?” suggests that a trader may have been aware of the coming attack, bet against the Israeli economy and walked away with a profit by short selling on the U.S. and Israeli stock exchanges.

Short selling is a trading strategy aimed at making a profit off an asset that is expected to drop in price; the seller “borrows” a security and sells it on the open market with the goal of buying it back later at a lower price and pocketing the difference.

The study looked at the Israel Exchange-Traded Fund, a common way for people to make investments in Israel, which on any given day has around 2,000 shares shorted. On Oct. 2, that number shot up to over 227,000 shares. 

According to Columbia Law School Professor Joshua Mitts, one of the authors of the study, “that’s extremely unusual.” It was also profitable: the shares sold short for one Israeli company alone yielded a profit of nearly $900,000.

Imagine, 1400 were killed, hundreds were kidnapped and women were assaulted and raped and babies beheaded and burned. That’s horrific enough even if you consider that you have a group of people who were since childhood taught that Jews were not due any consideration as human beings.

But the idea that there were people who KNEW this was coming and rather than doing something to prevent it decided it was an excellent chance to make a large profit. That brings obscenity to a whole new level.

Now in fairness the people who did this might well be the same as the folks who did the attacking, as Stephen Green put it:

Underground rocket factories don’t pay for themselves, you know.

So to them it might be the same ideology but for me this is so beyond the scope that it becomes very hard to see Christ in such people rather than recommend a generous use of hemp.

Closing thought: If I’m Israel from now on I’m monitoring stock markets for this type of activity in the future.

And just like that 10 Hour Days become 8 again

Posted: November 28, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, business, economy
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As I’ve written before I’ll be able to tell you who is lying about the state of the economy, the Biden administration or our own eyes, by the end of the week. Two big clues just turned up.

The first is that the Saturday after Cyber Monday which during the Trump years had been an optional 7th workday of the week will be a regular day off. While this is a big clue it’s also possible that the change in the shift structure from six months ago at my place meant there is enough weekend coverage that we aren’t needed. So it’s possible that this is solely due to clever preparation by the company to cut down on overtime expense.

The 2nd is more substantial. Yesterday was Cyber Monday, and not only were we able to keep up with orders but by the end of the day we were told that instead of coming in two hours early the rest of the week for the ten hour days they scheduled us for we can come in at our normal times.

Four days after Black Friday and we’re already back to 8 hour days. In the time that I’ve been here that’s unheard of.

As of right now Friday is still a mandatory 6th day. If that becomes optional before the week is out then hold onto your hats everyone because if you think it’s a bumpy ride now it’s about to get worse.

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