Archive for the ‘economy’ Category

Thanksgiving Thoughts Under the Fedora: Still no Apology, NFL Trumps the College Games, Their Call not Mine, Jokes not Told and the Week that Will Speak Volumes

Posted: November 23, 2023 by datechguy in economy, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, local issues, nfl, Sports, under the fedora
Tags: , , , , , , ,

It’s Thanksgiving day and because the Turkey is cooking and my wife is on full blast I did a quick Dunkin & McDonalds run so as not to dirty stuff for DaWife’s coffee or my breakfast.

I passed by St. Bernard’s football field and remembered the phony hate crime hoax from years ago that got national attention of the FBI & the Obama admin and caused the Lunenburg St. Bernard’s game to be cancelled that year. I covered the story here:

As I recall the town never got an apology from all those who called them a bunch of racists nor did the players who missed their Turkey game that year.

They never do.

Thanksgiving is a traditional day for football (as mentioned above). When I was young the TV would be filled with college games. Now the NFL has gone in a big way, not only just the Cowboys and the Lions who both host home games on Thanksgiving (and will therefore never face the other on Thanksgiving day) but a late game that is an A list matchup between the 49ers and the Seahawks. They have even added a black Friday game Dolphins at the Jets.

I guess they’re all in on Thanksgiving weekend and taking the business from the colleges and I guess it’s the right move. Make the money while you can now because nothing lasts forever.

As for me, well I guess it a good way to pass the time waiting for spring training

In a recent speech Tucker Carlson talked about trusting your gut. My gut says that the deal with Hamas that Israel has made for hostages is a bad idea.

But since it’s the Jews of Israel who are doing the fighting and dying and it’s the Jews of Israel whose woman and children are hostages and I’m just sitting at a keyboard in safety I think I’ll defer to the judgement of their leadership vs my own.

I’m old enough to remember when I could make a joke in public or online without worry that it wouldn’t give supporters of terror groups that want to kill jews idea.

Alas those days are gone so my excellent joke shall have to remain in house.

Finally today is going to be my last day off before Black Friday. During the Trump years this was flat out time for me. We ended up working 14 days in a row after Thanksgiving and six days a week all though Christmas and carried a ton of temps all thought that time.

Last year we had one busy week and it was so quiet that the Friday after black Friday was optional and all the extra temps were laid off within two weeks.

We had a busy week this week as one of our retailers had a pre-black friday sale but this week will say more about the truth of Biden economy than any talking head can.

Pinball Machine or Heat? Thanks Joe Biden!

Posted: November 11, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, economy, fun, hobbies, News/opinion, pinball, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

As all of you know I’m both a big baseball fan and a huge pinball fan and yesterday I got an offer that I thought I couldn’t refuse.

There is a first rate pinball game called Silver Slugger that was rented for me as a Christmas gift last year. I really enjoyed this game as it combines a standard pinball scoring system with a baseball scoring system (pinball points and runs) I can highly recommend this game to anyone who wants an inexpensive pinball machine. (New Machines generally run between $7-15K)

Well the fellow who rented the machine offered it to me for sale. He understood that I only had a limited area to place a game and said location might have issues with sunlight than can fade machine. This machine had a color scheme that would best be able to handle the location without damage.

Furthermore the price he asked was $300 less than the median current price on Pinside (the pinball market) and because he would be picking up a rental from my son anyways the delivery would not be extra which is huge.

It was an excellent bargain. I had enough to pay for the machine in the mad money that I’ve been putting aside every paycheck for the last year or two and I was debating if DaWife would tolerate a machine at the spot where it would go when the oil delivery truck showed up in front of the house.

So I went outside grab the mail and to get the bill for the 190 gallons of heating oil that the tank took.

$710

Mind you this is the first delivery of the year. During an average heating season I expect to have 3 1/2 more such deliveries turn up at the house over the four or five months. Which means $2500 more in oil bills yet to come.

During the Trump years that same oil bill would have been about $360-$400 at the most meaning I would expect to pay another $1260- $1400 dollars over the course of the heating season.

The difference? That the price of the machine.

Now if it were the Trump years I would be able to use that cash saved for the machine secure in the knowledge that I’d be able to handle any twists and turns that might come up. The only question would be the reaction of DaWife to it being a permanent rather than a temporary addition to the house that my sons might rent for me at Christmas & Birthdays.

But alas Joe Biden is president, everything from groceries to gasoline has skyrocketed and given the inept foreign policy that has enabled our enemies and funded Iran who funds Iran and the turmoil in the middle east I can’t be sure that my next oil bill won’t be a whole lot more by the time I burn through what I have, particularly since domestic energy production which was big in the Trump years, is discouraged now.

Given those facts It would be completely irresponsible for me to spend the money on that machine, much more prudent to hold off in case the side effects of the third Obama Term Biden years get even worse. And of course if we have a fourth Obama term second Biden term it likely won’t be much better.

So as I look longingly at the photo of the machine that I enjoyed so much and email the fellow that I really can’t pull the trigger right now all I can say is:

Thanks Joe Biden.

The Biden Administration Economy Explained In Three Sentences

Posted: September 29, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, economy
Tags:

I just filled up the tank on my 1999 Buick LeSabre which was almost empty.

In order to earn the money it cost me to fill that tank I have to work three hours at my job.

Four years ago I would have had to work under an hour and a half.

Five Under the Fedora Truths Homeless for Fun and Profit, All Beers Look Alike to Me, Breaking a Twitter Habit, The Chosen Speeding Up and Biden Economy expectations

Posted: August 16, 2023 by datechguy in business, culture, economy, education, entertainment, tech, twitter
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Glenn Reynolds notes the shock of some that passing a law concerning homeless camps and actually enforcing it has caused camps to vanish. This is a disaster for some NGO’s in the sense that they get a lot of government and state money to solve a problem that can be solved by just enforcing the law.

Key quote:

We get urban decay because we tolerate it. And as for the nonprofits/NGOs, homelessness is far too lucrative a problem to solve.

There is no incentive to solve a problem that is both a profit center for you and allows you to claim virtue.

Speaking of profit centers there is a 2nd post at Insty today on a man who will be teaching about the Budlight fiasco at business school. It’s is certainly a subject worth scholarship but it that had a line that likely floated under the radar to most people that I found absolutely hilarious:

He emphasized that beer is essentially the same product, and what sets it apart is the power of its brand

I would submit and suggest this is pretty much true. I suspect a lot of brand loyalty in beer is all about habit. Break that habit and you break that brand.

And Speaking of Breaking the habit as of Today Tweetdeck is no longer a free service when I tried to access it today I was redirected to a screen offering me a blue subscription check for $80 a year.

The real point is Twitter’s value basically comes from addicting people to multiple streams of data and giving folks who want to reach a maximum size audience (advertisers etc) access to that stream. This move gives an incentive for people to walk away from the stream and once people are broken of the addiction your done.

While Elon Musk should of course make the best possible business decision for his product I submit and suggest this is rather foolish. Tweetdeck makes twitter useful because it allows you to view multiple streams in the same window. Without it twitter involves too many tabs and simply isn’t worth my time. I might keep a tab with my DM page available and I might answer embedded tweets I see elsewhere but if you want to get me to see something by putting it on twitter odds are starting today I’ll miss it

On a totally different note I was shocked to see that season 4 of the chosen was going to include the razing of Lazarus from the dead.

Given that this is the last big miracle before the entry into Jerusalem I figured we would see it till at least season 5, particularly since we are going to get the beheading of John the Baptist this season which comes much earlier.

That suggests that either season 7 is going to be all passion and resurrection, with season six all Jerusalem

(Don’t be surprised with the number of characters there is plenty of material for this to be the case) and Season five everything else OR that Dallas plans on moving up the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and having a large chunk of season seven covering a big chunk of acts.

Either way it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

Finally we have regularly been getting short weeks at work. Last week was 30 hours, the week before 32 and the week before 30 which is a great incentive to burn vacation days for people and unpaid time off has been offered which can be tempting on a really beautiful summers day.

Yesterday on the drive in all of us in the car agreed that we would be lucky to end up with four hours although one of us was optimistic enough to suggest me might manage 6.

Much to my shock and everyone else’s as well there seemed there was plenty of work in my department and by moving some people to it during the day ( and letting a few go home early who wanted to ) all of us who stayed managed to our delight a full 8 hours of work which guarantees us at least a 32 hour week.

That’s how bad the Biden economy is, it’s so bad that getting a full days work in the middle of a work week on a day you’re scheduled to work a full day is a pleasant surprise worthy of note

Older Entries
Newer Entries