Archive for the ‘trade’ Category

Five Thoughts Under the Fedora: Coyote vs Acme’s a Winner, The Spin Cycle on Iran is Ending, China Says Jump Canada’s Carney Says “How High?”, Oil for the tanks of Trump, Goodbye Dolly

Posted: August 31, 2026 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, entertainment, politics, trade, Uncomfortable Truths, under the fedora
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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie that’s actually is popular both with the critics and the fans. Coyote vs Acme is one of them. I went to see it with my sons and my priest and amazingly it was even better than the hype.

That they decided it was incapable of making its cost back is a tad of a surprise but $70 million isn’t peanuts.

I have believe that it was held back because the last thing the left wants is people watching old movies and cartoons that bring people back to saner times.

The attempt to spin the Iran war online seems to have intensified. Likely because with a secure corridor for shipping and the continuing pipeline advancements the ability of Iran and their allies to stop oil from flowing is almost nil.

Add to that the phony mines and the strikes to interdict their resupply the only cards they have are talk and social media.

But once that oil reaches the market you will see prices come down & when that happens in October it will be bad news for the left and even worse for the Democrats.

But yeah believe the online folks who claim that Trump is a fool.

Canada’s decision to cover for China’s attempt to dump steel into the US through them speaks a lot to what the Canadian left has done to the country.

Personally I think it’s less about China protecting their steel exports then it is the hope that this hurts the GOP in the midterms.

Iran, Canada, Russia, China and the Democrats would all like to see the midterms go bad for Trump.

They know where their bread is buttered.

Apparently Trump has made a deal with Venezuela that will be refilling our strategic oil reserve as a “gift” to our country.

This is another blow to the “Trump is an idiot” , “Trump is a failure”, “Trump doesn’t know what’s he’s doing” narrative, but more importantly it puts the US in the single best position in the west with full tanks at a time when others energy supplies are failing.

All of this without a giant hit on our treasury. How much winning can one president manage?

Finally the reaction to the death of Dolly Parton has been a huge surprise to me. Not that people have celebrated her, but that it has been universal and international. People who have been pushing the most vile murderous ideologies have nevertheless recognized her goodness and her actions on behalf of her fellow man which was practiced without favoritism.

It was so universal that her unwillingness to attack her own people, a people despised by the elites everywhere, were not enough to bring down their opinion of her.

It would not surprise me if some of those in media complementing her don’t mean it, but they’re smart enough to know there is no percentage in trying to play those cards.

Dolly as a villain just isn’t sellable, at least not at this time.

Democrats’ inflation attacks ordinary Americans as Washington insiders are unaffected

Posted: October 16, 2022 by John Ruberry in business, economy, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics, trade
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By John Ruberry

Every time Americans shop at a supermarket, they are reminded of a de facto tax on their spending power–inflation. The classic definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, which, President Joe Biden and his apologists, jumped on last year when they deemed inflation as “transitory,” pointing at the supply-chain crisis and the backlog of freighters at America’s major seaports. Left out of Biden and Company’s explanation was his $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which the president signed into law in early 2021, when the economy was clearly already recovering from the COVID lockdown.

But the supply-chain crisis was in fact a couple-months long hiccup. After all, if the supply-chain crisis was such a concern, why did we only find out after the media began asking questions on the whereabouts of the person in charge of our ports, secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg? Only then was it revealed that Buttigieg was on paternity leave. 

The semiconductor chip shortage has driven up the price of new automobiles. The lack of chips is tied to the worldwide COVID lockdown. I’ll discuss cars in a bit. 

Over the past 12 months, according to the September figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation soared, again, to a level not seen in four decades, at a rate of 8.2 percent. Despite what appears to be, for real, a transitory drop in gasoline prices. But fuel prices are dramatically higher than when Donald Trump was president because of the Biden administration’s anti-fossil fuel polices. Food and housing prices are way up. Agriculture is a major user of energy, and many fertilizers are derived from fossil fuels. And those increasingly expensive loaves of bread you see on the shelves of your local supermarket don’t arrive there by way of osmosis, nor by electric trucks.

But don’t worry, Biden recently signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Insert The Simpsons’ Nelson Muntz “haw-haw” here.

The new car shortage has led to a used car shortage. All vehicles are more expensive. To fight inflation, the Federal Reserve, continues to hike its key interest rate, which drives up all lending. Most people don’t pay cash for cars, they finance. 

Then there is housing. Maria Bartiromo, on Fox and Friends this morning, laid the truth on the line when she said, “People who are going to buy a home are realizing that their mortgage payment now going to be going to be hundreds and hundreds of dollars more than they thought every month.”

Okay, no big deal, you might say, “I can always rent a place to live.” But rents are up too.

Now, if you are a Beltway insider, then you need not worry. Washington is recession proof. And the capital’s response, particularly when Democrats are in charge, is always more government. If you are a DC insider, you are well paid. You’re not sweating about food prices going up and you can afford an electric vehicle and the expense of installing a car charger in your garage.

The only known cure for high inflation is a recession. Despite Democrats’ creative denials, we are in one already.

Expect our economy to get even worse.  

But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Joe Biden loses his.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

DaTechGuy off DaRadio Livestream Spontaneous Podcast the Civil War you don’t want and Cui Bono

Posted: April 28, 2021 by datechguy in blogs, business, crime, culture, DaTechGuy's Quick Thoughts, economy, News/opinion, podcast, trade
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Today I have some free time so it’s time for another spontaneous livestream

You can watch here

Topics will include

  1. The Civil war that you don’t want (or why people don’t understand why this is a bad thing.
  2. The Cold Civil war and what it means
  3. Cui Bono from the Biden Administration
  4. Stalling stalling stalling
  5. Reaping meeting sowing on police protection for Democrat cities

It will all start around 9:40 AM EST hope to see you here

A Few Photos and Videos from the Tender Bar Shoot in my neighborhood earlier this month with Ben Affleck and George Clooney

Posted: April 24, 2021 by datechguy in culture, entertainment, local, oddities, special events, trade
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There are the people in my neighborhood

One of the interesting things about having part of a movie shot in your neighborhood is the number of people who turn up, both your neighbors who you end up talking to and people from around the area. While I went outside a couple of times my wife spent most of the day outside getting up very early and taking photos and videos with the camera I usually use for interviews (which have been few and far between due to work and COVID although I had a pair of Catholic ones this week, more on that tomorrow). She pretty much shot a bunch of one minute clips and a fair amount of photos till she came home tired around 2 and crashed. The biggest take away I got from them was that despite the better pay a lot of acting, at least in movies which aren’t on the same deadline as a weekly TV show, is that like any other job there is a fair amount of tedious repetition.

Because she took so many shots I’m only uploading a few plus three videos. Be aware that the date on the Camera was set wrong. While the shoot had been scheduled for the 7th it was actually done on the 8th.

There are plenty more but I think this gives the gist of what is going on with the police controlling the crowd and traffic and the guys in charge letting people know when to be quiet etc.

I figured the Diner would have done pretty well with these folks but alas for Ed because there were three different days when the shooting might have taken place his regulars stayed away those days and he only got a quick burst of business when they called lunch the day of the shooting which didn’t make up for it.

Anyways here are the three videos here is one with a shot of their car pulling out

My wife shot a lot of those, didn’t upload the others since they were pretty much the same. DaWife says they did it about five times. Each time they pull out, when Clooney calls cut Affleck backs up and they get ready to do it again.

Here is another shot of Clooney joking with the kid and Affleck before another shot. This would be just visible from my front yard.

And finally here is a 3rd shot of him directing the kid before another shot and then the shot itself. The antique cars were parked in the neighborhood for about a week before the shoot but then again I’m old enough that to me they don’t seem like antiques they’re just the cars I remember from the 70’s. In fact my 1st two cars were a 67 Barracuda and a 75 Buick LeSabre both convertables.

My chief interest in all of these is how the work is actually done as I’m not experienced in it. Granted it’s not work in the sense that my dad worked or that I or my sons or my wife do but it’s work and it takes them away from their homes for long periods of time. Granted it would have been cool to get Clooney to sign the season 1 of ER that I bought my wife 20+ years ago and my son had hoped to get a Batman comic signed by both as they each (Clooney meh, Affleck actually very good) played the role but there was none of that.

And frankly in an age of cancel culture where people are looking to bring down folks for saying or doing the wrong thing the last thing you really want to do is mix with a bunch of strangers with cameras any one of whom might hold a grudge and be looking to get their 15 min of fame by giving you grief. That realization precludes Jimmy Stewart’s old advice to Raquel Welch about fans and autographs these days and must be a pain in the neck, particularly if someone happens to be affable by nature who previously enjoyed meeting the fans.

At least the pay is good.

As I said there are a lot more pictures and a lot more video but they seem too repetitive to upload to youtube and given how close to the vest things have been around here I can’t justify the extra bandwidth charges to put them all up. Feel free to hit DaTipJar to offset those costs.

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