Posts Tagged ‘economy’

Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora, Trump Runs, Economy Crashes, Ukraine and the Censors, Biden pulling a Homer, Experts and Lampposts

Posted: November 17, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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President Trump has announced that he is running to return to the White House. Can somebody explain to me why if so many people are positive that he is going to destroy the chances of the GOP in 2024 why so many on the left are doing all they can to prevent him from even being elegible?

or president

Amazon is laying off 10,000 just before Black Friday. Let those of you who have insisted that we’re not in a recession let that sink in.

At my own warehouse we’ve gone from Friday being mandatory to people being offered yesterday and today off. Frankly I was tempted to take today but I’ve been out sick so many days lately I figured I’d better turn up.

I’m telling you this, if this country returns Biden to the White House after this economy then we deserve everything that happens to us and more.

A lot of fuss is being made about the rockets that hit Poland this weeks. There was a rush to blame Russia until it was discovered that is was a Ukrainian rocket. Let’s remember a few things about war that our friends who never studied it and know nothing about it need to know:

  1. Accidents happen in war, from Friendly fire to malfunctioning equipment. It’s very easy to screw up when you’re working under the pressure of someone else trying to kill you.
  2. Information is a weapon in war. All sides are going to release info to try to gain the support of others. Anyone who blindly believes what a belligerent in war says is a dope and deserves to be deceived.
  3. No plan, regardless of how elegant or well conceived survives contact with the enemy and real world conditions.

Given the track record of the “experts” on this war I’m shocked anyone consults with them.

A lot of people have conveniently forgotten that just before the war started Biden talked about the Russian seizure of the eastern parts of Ukraine as a fait accompli something to be accepted and let’s not forget he was in a hurry to get Zelensky out of there before he was turned down.

The real irony however is that Putin was likely encouraged by Biden’s show of weakness and because of this the Russians bit off more than they could chew and were revealed to be the paper tiger they apparently are. If Trump had been in Putin wouldn’t have moved period and the world would still be terrified of the Russian army instead of using it as a punchline.

That’s the dictionary definition of a Homer

Finally if you have to sum up COVID and the left in a single tweet I don’t think you can do better than this:

If this was 150 years ago the lampposts of this nation would be full of “experts”

Answer: The Results were always “Unexpected” by the Media/Elites

Posted: July 28, 2022 by datechguy in economy, opinion/news
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Question: What is the one thing in common about the constant stream of bad economic news produced during the Biden Administration and the constant stream of good economic news produced during the Trump Administration?

#unexpectedlytm of course,

Report from Louisiana: Working two jobs

Posted: July 18, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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Photo by Yassine Khalfalli on Unsplash

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – I am no economist and so would have poor skills in predicting where this incredible inflation will end, but man, it has got to end somewhere.

When I retired from teaching a year and a half ago, my pension was comfortable. Now? It doesn’t go nearly as far as it did then. That’s why when my church needed a part-time receptionist in the office, I took it on. I figured the extra money would ease the pain. And then, when they asked me to add another day and work four days a week, I agreed to that, too.  Picking up that extra four or five days a month looked good. Now I’m thinking I need to ramp up my paid writing sideline a bit and earn even more.

We just returned from a trip to Iowa where my husband’s family lives. From Louisiana, we usually spend about $200 to $250 in gas there and back each year. This year it was literally double, costing us right at $100 every time we filled up. On top of that, rising food prices are causing pain at the grocery store, too. Across the nation, more and more people are looking for supplemental income. According to the Washington Post, “the percentage of employed people working multiple jobs in the United States has steadily increased since March 2020 from 4 percent in April 2020 to 4.8 percent in June 2022…”.  That percentage seems somewhat low to me.

In Iowa, where we just spent a week, we were in the south-central region. I know there are very liberal pockets in Iowa, but there are plenty of conservatives, too, and we met a lot of them. I saw one lady in the grocery store wearing a t-shirt that said, “Buck Joe Fiden.” Uh, okay. I saw a lot of Trump flags, and I saw zero Biden signs although I know there are Biden supporters there.

The chatter I heard at baseball games, in the stores, and in the shops were all full of angst at the state of the economy. My husband’s family is a farming family with a generational farm. The cost of fuel to run tractors and trucks is just crippling and many farmers will not make it because of this. It is devastating in the Midwest.

Like I said, I’m not sure where all this will end up, or who will be left standing when it’s over, if it is ever over, but I, for one, am working double time to get debts paid off and sock something back before everything implodes. I have one friend, an older lady who has seen some things in her day, who is selling off assets and putting up cash. She is downsizing, selling off jewelry with no sentimental meaning, putting up cold cash whenever she can. “I’m scared,” she told me. “I’ve never seen it like this, and I’m scared.” She is not usually this reactive.

She’s not wrong.

Report from Louisiana: Loose Thoughts

Posted: June 27, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Random, unconnected thoughts and observations:

HOT: As I write this, it is literally 104 degrees in Shreveport with a heat index of 106. I know it’s summer, but we don’t usually get this kind of heat until August. And rain? What’s that? When I open my door, it is literally like walking outside into a blast furnace. Meh.

HATE: And on the subject of suffering, you might think with the heat driving me indoors, I could take refuge in the mindless distraction of social media. Nope. That’s no place I want to be right now. There’s a lot of hate out there these days, folks. A lot of hate. I’m staying all the way away from that.

PAYWALLS: Am I the only person who gets frustrated by paywalls? I know, we need to pay for good journalism. But I’m talking about The Advocate, for crying out loud! I tried to read three articles today and they are all behind a paywall. I don’t care enough to find a workaround right now.

FUEL: We are preparing for our annual trip to the great Midwest next week to visit husband’s family. And we drive. From Louisiana to Iowa. There and back, we anticipate gas to be $400 of our budget. That is insane. IN.  SANE. Needless to say, we won’t be making the side trips we usually do, like going to see minor league baseball or going out to eat. Bummer.

BOOKS: My reading has slacked off for some unknown reason. I just finished an historical fiction novel, The Tobacco Wives, that was mediocre. The best books I’ve read lately have been nonfiction. Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell was awesome. Beautifully written. I’m currently reading Antagonists in the Church and it’s making some valid points. I’m ready for a good, thick Stephen King novel to entertain me. Something I don’t have to think too hard about in this dang heat.

CRIME: If you’re trying to keep up (and why should you, really?) we continue to have at least one shooting a day here in Shreveport; we have thirty homicides so far. The saddest part is that by far the majority of those are teenagers and early twenties. Young people. And no, I don’t blame guns. I blame the poor economy, the lack of opportunity, the lack of a moral compass, lack of ethics, high poverty, much despair. Nothing to lose. Sad.

TELEVISION: Guilty confession – I don’t watch much TV, but when we aren’t watching baseball, our TV is usually tuned to FETV where we watch old stuff. I’ve seen every single Andy Griffith, Hazel, Beverly Hillbillies, Emergency!, and Perry Mason. Every. Single. One. Not sure I’m proud of this.

PUBLIC ART: Oh hey, and if you missed it, check out the new public art installation in New Orleans now that all those pesky monuments are gone. I don’t think this is behind the paywall.

Stay cool, y’all. Peace out.

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