Banks

With the recent marketing disasters at Bud Light and Target the question comes up as to why these companies chose this path. Did they think this trans gender woman was a typical Bush drinker. In the past Bush ads had been all about guys, football and drinking beer at parties. This is a large consumer base whereas there are very few trans people. One explanation is that banks and in particular Investment banks like Black Rock put pressure on companies. This even had some blow back on the banks. Black Rock CEO Larry Fink said he is no longer using the term ESG (environment, social and governance). At the start Fink thought this was a way to bring people together but it did not work out. Some say Fink was not in touch with how ordinary people react to companies.

Newsom

As California Governor Newsom looks toward the presidency, it behooves everyone to take a look at what could be expected. A good place to start is San Francisco where Newsom used to be the mayor. Over the past 20 years the budget for San Fran has increased from $3.5 billion to $14.5 billion. This is mostly from two areas. First is the number of employees has increased from 29,500 in 2013 to 36,600 in 2023 while the city has lost about 50,000 in population. Second is the use of non profits to carry out city business. In the past non profits were groups like Catholic Charities but today they are non profit but more like businesses. The city now has 600 non profits conducting the cities business. These entities present their cost of operation to the department manager of the function and they are approved by this manage who is not able to properly audit because of the lack of people and in particular trained people. Those who understand the system realize that each non profit contributes campaign contribution to each manager and thus the circle is complete. This kind of system is ripe for corruption. The state, despite having the highest income tax rate in the country, is facing a $68 billion dollar deficit. This is the experience that Newsom will bring with him on his journey to the White House.

Workers

A persons financial worth is greatest from ages 50 to 65 and up until a decade ago this included the largest generation in history called the baby boomers. This meant there was lots of capital available for investment and thus the cost of capital was low. Add to that the fact that interest rates were less than one percent and the world was flush with money for investments. Now more than half the baby boomers have retired and the rest will be past 65 in six years so the cost of capital will rise quickly. The baby boomer money is taken out of the capital market and placed in safe spaces like government bonds and money market funds. The result is rising interest rates. This is coming at a time when reshoring is growing and adding to the industrial base so inflation will be a problem. This will lead to higher wages and higher prices and if the first stays ahead of the second the average worker will do alright. The middle income groups paid for the prosperity of the rich over the past forty years and now it is time for the working people to catch up.

Blockade

The Hootie attacks on ships in the Red Sea is causing shipping insurance rates to rise as was predicted. The rates have increased from $200 per one million insured value to $7,000 per million. This will raise the cost of all goods which will lead to inflation. This has caused many shippers to avoid the Suez and go around the Horn of Africa which again increases the cost. The US has sent war ships to the area to protect shipping and they are shooting down rockets and drones fired from Yemen. The US is playing a defensive position since they are not attacking the rockets in Yemen. It is predicted that sooner or later one of these rockets will hit an American ship and then the US will attack in Yemen and then we will be in another war. Would it be wise to take the preemptive step of blockading all Iranian oil from leaving the Persian Gulf until such time as the Iranians stop providing Yemen with rockets. Once this is done this will limit the supplies that Iran can afford to send to Hamas and slow down the number of rockets being fired into Israel. Almost daily someone reports that Iran is the number one supporter of terrorism. Perhaps a blockade will get their attention.

Evil side

There is a battle going on between news people and it involves how news is reported. The old school journalist involved striving for objectivity knowing that it was impossible to report without bias but constantly on the lookout for bias. It was a common practice for a journalist to ask the opinion of a trusted comrade. The idea was to search out the facts and present those to the reader and then allowing the reader to interpret the facts. It was considered irresponsible to infer motives. It was proper to print what someone said but not what the reader thought they meant. The sort of I know what you thinking type reporting. In recent years a new type of journalism has appeared on the scene and it is called moral clarity. The journalist is now allowed to take the facts and editorialize on the facts. The writer starts with the facts and then proceeds to expand the story to meet the writers preconceived idea of what is really going on. This then leads to a conflict between good and evil with the journalist knowing which side is evil. If one side is evil then all bets are off. The evil side does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. That side is no longer innocent until proven guilty. It becomes trial by public opinion.

ChatGpt

When an old man complains about the younger generation, the standard retort is, its always been that way. The point is that if this generation is in trouble no one would know. When I was young I would go to the library to do research but today I just go online. This is not a change is style but a more convenient way to research. I still take in information, digest it and regurgitate it in my own style. I used to write letters to the editor in the local paper and they would call me to verify that I was the writer but after while they no longer called. I inquired about this and the editor told me he knew my style and didn't have to verify. Contrast that the Chat Gpt. A writer can start using this as way to improve efficiency but in time it will be used more frequently and soon the writers style will change. Slowly overtime the writer will be influenced by the computer without realizing what is happening. At that point the computer is integrating the bias of the programmer into the writer. If more and more writers use this new technology the computers gain more and more power over what is written. The next move is the government gaining control of the programmers. In an indirect way this is happening today when government is allowed to influence what social media permits. At my age I will not be using Chat Gpt but many younger writers may not consider the potential risk or even be aware of the risk.

Elites

Elon Musk is a controversial figure. Most billionaires avoid publicity but he thrives on it. One area where he is causing upheaval is with the World Economic Forum (WEF) an organization that most people know little to nothing about. They are in the news once per a year when the rich and powerful meet in Davos to discuss how they can improve the world under their benevolent guidance. Musk has called them an unelected world government that nobody wants. As deglobalization proceeds forward the influence of these elites will fade and die. These are the people who during the cold war pushed for any an all global organizations like the UN, WTO and the WHO. They went so far as to suggest that the Supreme Court take direction from the International Court of Justice. They had the backing of the old cold war liberals who said better red than dead. These were people who favored world government but deglobalization is now changing their minds especially as the benefits of reshoring raise all boats.

TikTok

Many people are nervous about TikTok because they believe it is harmful to children. I don't know what it is but I know how to get rid of it without passing any laws. Just ask all the parents to go on TicTok and mention some item they saw to their children each day. In short order their will be no one under age 18 on TikTok. The parents ran the youngsters off Face Book and they can do it again.

Show strength

President Biden is touting Bidenomics for the increase in manufacturing in the US when in fact much of it has to do with onshorning which will continue far into the future after he is gone. This is the way things are done. The president gets credit for things that go right and blame for things that go wrong. Among the wrong things are two wars and another brewing around the Red Sea with the possibility of a China invasion of Taiwan. In reality Biden gets partial credit and partial blame. The credit is the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act which added to the already hot manufacturing sector and many say it was the perceived weakness of the Biden administration which prompted the bold action taken by Putin in Ukraine and Hamas in Gaza which is now spreading to the Red Sea. Once more America finds out that projecting strength backed up with action is what autocratic governments understand. Trying to reason with diplomacy is often times seen as weakness by autocrats. It is like Churchill said that American can always be counted on to do the right thing after everything else fails. Once again we are coming too late to the dance.

2025

It is New Years Day 2025 and as we look back at 2024 we are astounded as to how much happened in one short year, enough to spin heads all across the country. It began July 4th of 2024 when a terrorist acting alone fired an RPG rocket into a cafe where President Biden and VP Harris were lunching and both died instantly. Within 24 hours House Speaker Mike Johnson was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. The next week Johnson named Donald Trump as his new V|P and promised not to run in the November 2024 elections which opened the door for Trump. During the summer Biden's health had deteriorated to the point where he was kept out of the public and his surrogates were given the responsibility for his reelection. A special prosecutor was set up to investigate the assassination of Biden and Harris and uncovered a terrorist gang was responsible. Members of Hamas had come across the border as got-a-ways and brought with them an Iranian manufactured rocket. A person sympathetic to the Palestinian cause had a close friend who worked in the White House and had access to the president schedule and thus they knew that both the president and the VP would be at that restaurant at that time. Amid a large group of protesters it was easy to get close to the target as the police did not want to elevate the tension. Joyous celebrations erupted spontaneously around the world as people saw this act as payback for the bombings in Gaza which they blamed on Biden. Trump spent his first year expanding fossil fuel production to the max including coal as the demand for energy rose rapidly as the manufacturing base grew in response to onshoring. He closed the border by bringing back remain in Mexico and forcing the Mexican president to close the border between Mexico and Guatemala by threatening to place import taxes on goods from Mexico. Trump's war on crime resulted in threatening to cut off federal money to states who failed to carry out the law in regards to no bail and DA's who failed to jail repeat criminals. He opened up the Red Sea to traffic by threatening an oil embargo against Iran. He met with NATO officials and convinced them to negotiate a peace settlement in Ukraine offering the Dombas region to Putin and a promise not to invited Ukraine into NATO. As the year came to an end Trump spent his time setting up plans to fight inflation.

More on energy

In recent years many reports have been issued showing the wealth gap or another way of saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough the same gap also exist in energy usage. Here is some recent data. The richest 1 percent of the world's population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity, reveals a new Oxfam report today.Nov 20, 2023 These are the people who are control and will they willingly to use less. Here is the story of one such person and there are many more. Al Gore has three large houses, one in Tenn, one in TX and a $9 million ocean-view mansion with six fireplaces, five bedroom, nine bathroom, a huge pool and a spa. Will it be the old story of do as I say not as I do.

Energy

In the mid 1700's the industrial revolution took hold and led by the steam engine and coal the supply of energy expanded rapidly. In the late 1800's the internal combustion engine along and with oil added more growth to the economy. The standard of living for the people in the Western world has increased year after year for 300 years because of low cost energy. The West is now approaching the day when oil and coal will no longer be available and the people are not willing to look at nuclear. This will change when people are asked to voluntarily lower their standard of living because of energy shortages and the government will using the force of law make people use less energy. It will start slow with things like central control of your home thermostat, mileage taxes and travel restrictions. The squeeze will continue and people will just go along as they did with Covid. This will put more and more power into government and that will be just fine with those in control. At some point people will say why didn't we start nuclear years ago and everyone will chime in and say that is what they always wanted and that anyone with common sense knew this.

Conspiracy

My faith in conspiracy theories is growing. Those who said the Covid came from a lab were originally laughed at and now as more comes out it seems they were not so crazy. Those who questioned the story of Jeffrey Epstein were off base but as more information comes out they don't seem so far off. The Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation but later proven to be true The Trump/Russia collusion was debunked The January 6 raid is now taking on a different picture as more video is released. The Ferguson story about the hands up turned out to be a lie A recent release of more videos on the George Floyd story is now putting a different light on things. The Biden family business is getting more involved starting with Joe saying he had no knowledge of his sons business. Add to this all of the many stories about the coming climate disaster that turned out to be exaggerations Last but not least is Homeland Security Mayorkus who was saying the border is secure when video showed it was not.

SMR

Over the past 20 years the world has spent $4.6 trillion dollars on renewable energy projects and this has not reduced the amount of fossil fuel usage because the increase in demand has outpaced the increase in renewables. Over the next 20 years, if this money is spent on small modular reactors (SMR's), along with the latest carbon dioxide turbines there will be zero carbon. The reactors are built on an assembly line and are the size of a semi trailer. The new turbines can also be built on assembly lines and they are also the size of a semi trailer. Each reactor is 100 megawatts (MW) and each turbine can handle 5 reactors. A typical large scale nuclear power plant is one gigawatt or 10 MW. To replace a current nuclear power plant requires 10 SMR's and 2 turbines. These can all be built and supply all of the power needed for the world at a cost of $4.5 trillion dollars.

DEglobalization

As deglobalization expands and America comes home the protections provided to the free world will lessen and countries will have to take on the task of their own self defense. This reshoring will present a problem to the old time liberals in the United States, the group that was partial to world government. This is the group that declared better red than dead when Reagan challenged the Soviets. They are the believers in the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum and the World Trade Organization. Some in this group even preferred the International Court system. As the US pulls away from these groups, starting with the financial side, they will become less relevant. North America will be the big winner in this new world order and Europe and China will be the big losers. This move toward Nationalism will trickle down to federalism in the United States as the states will gain power and the federal government will relinquish power. In the coming years some countries will adapt and rise while others will fall behind and a lot will depend on demographics and a willingness to change. Japan, for example, with an aging population will send much of its production to the North American where there is a working age population and a large consumer group. Japan will manufacture their products here and sell them here and send the profits back home to take care of their elderly. England may look at doing something similar. Other countries will have to come up with their own strategies to deal with the new world.

Migrants

The federal government is sending migrants to San Diego. They cannot process these migrants in Texas so they send them to San Diego for processing. It started in mid September with about 200 per day and is now up to 800 per day. There are currently 50,000 migrants in San Diego. They are trying to ship them out to other places in the US but the process cannot keep up. This is on top of an existing problem. A few years ago the state released prisoners who were not charged with violent crimes and state hospitals released patients who were deemed not dangerous. These people used up the existing facilities so there is no room for the migrants. People are sleeping on the street and the county doesn't have the money to care for the migrants. There are similar problems in other cities.

DEI

The concept of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is dying. Its rise, starting in the civil rights movement of the 1960's, became self destructive as it turned toward exclusion of those who did not agree. It led to things like cancel culture and Covid exposed how it affected schools with things like critical race theory. Now with the Palestinian protest in colleges there are more questions. Big companies first saw this as a way of polishing their image with sayings like doing good while doing well. HR departments jumped on the band wagon and what was a good purpose swung too far and now is subject to back lash. The research that showed that DEI was good for business turned wrong when things went too far. The result is that many companies are reducing their DEI investments. Let by tech companies like Amazon, Twitter, Meta and Microsoft the DEI professionals are being laid off and budgets are cut sometimes as much as 90%. Other companies like Walmart, Netflix and Wells Fargo are facing criticism and backlash from consumers and employees. The pendulum swung too far.

Reagan

In 1980 I voted for independent candidate John Anderson. He was a republican who ran and lost to Reagan in the primaries. I didn't see Reagan as a successful Governor of California but a former actor and spokesman for GE. Carter was out with his stagflation so I was left with Anderson. During Reagan's first term he used a combination of tax cuts and deregulation to grow the economy and jobs. He promised three things. To cut taxes, to increase defense and balance the budget. He got the first two but failed on the third. His major accomplishment was that he convinced Gorbachev that the Soviets could not compete militarily and set he stage for the collapse of communism. Gorbachev realized that the central planning government could not compete with the free market economies of the west and three years after Reagan left office communism in the Soviet Union ended. Prior to the 1980's economist looked at two ways to grow the economy. They said you could prime the pump at the top and companies would expand and create new jobs or you could prime the pump at the bottom and consumers would buy more goods and expand the economy. These ideas worked after the war and up to the 1980's but then things changed and destroyed Reagan's concept of a rising tide lifts all boats. Companies discovered that it was more efficient to just buy an existing facility that to build new ones and priming at the top no longer worked. Companies came up with a whole new department called mergers and acquisitions and lifting all boats became trickle down economics and the rich gained while the poor suffered. During Reagan's years in office the working people prospered but in the long haul they lost.

Trust

Starting in the 1980's jobs began leaving the US and this effected middle America more than the coastal areas. There were many people who were not happy with the federal government and Reagan appealed to them when he said the government is not the solution to the problem, the government is the problem. This distrust for government was aggravated by the dot com revolution of the 90's where stock holders made millions but blue collar guys lost jobs. Then the mortgage collapse in 2008 cost many to lose their homes. Since Covid many people have come to realize that the government misled them and the distrust for government grew. They were told that the virus came from an animal market. They were told that the vaccine would keep you safe. They were told if you got the vaccine you couldn't pass on the disease. They were told that natural immunity was not as good as getting vaxed. They learned that masks were not as protective as promised. They learned that staying six feet apart was just a suggestion. They learned that closing schools was a mistake and children are paying the price. All of this has added to the distrust of government that had been building since the 80's. Polls show that only 16% trust the government down from 70% in 1960.

WEF

Beginning with the founding of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 1971 a group of individuals and their business associates have set about a long term plan to have a world government. Just like many in the United States see the federal government replacing state government the WEF wants a world government to replace national governments. The same arguments are use in both cases. These are the rich and powerful people who meet each year in Davos, Switzerland to set their agenda for world government. The deglobalization and accompanying reshoring that is in progress has tossed a major wrench into their plans. This is the exact opposite of what they have been striving for since the 1970's. There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around as to how they might respond and one is a world wide Internet crash. With this they could demand that all people have ID's so that any future crashes could be handled expeditiously giving them one of their long term goals of world wide ID cards. These could be used to open personal information on a much grander scale than the Patriot Act passed shortly after 9/11. They believe the first necessary step to controlling the world would be to control personal information. There was a trial run to determine how the people would react when Biden, in early 2000, declared a medical emergency over Covid. People were given orders and they dutifully followed and if you didn't there would be consequences. You must close your business, stay in doors, stay 6 feet apart, wear a mask and get your Covid shot. If you chose not to obey you would subjected to ridicule, public shaming and job loss. The press, Silicon Valley, big business and social media immediately joined forces with the government to make sure people toed the line. Those in power felt it was almost too easy.

Copper

Many years ago the strip mining of coal was outlawed because it was damaging to the landscape. Copper is strip mined where often times the first step is to clear the forest. Then explosives are used to blow up the earth before the digging begins. The ore is crushed and mixed with chemicals like sulfuric acid to change the copper into copper sulfide. Sulfides are processed by extraction and purification using chemicals and heat. At the smelter the ore is heated to 2,300 degrees F and converted into a molten liquid. Electric current is then used to plate out the copper. The proposed copper mine in Arizona will use 18% of the Colorado River's water supply which is enough for one million homes. This is in an area where there is a water shortage. Sulfide ore copper mining released dangerous chemicals like mercury, arsenic, lead along with air pollution. Clean water surrounding a copper mine can quickly become polluted, appearing a reddish color from copper acid. Contaminate water can severely impact groundwater, fish, wildlife and farmland. The current usage of copper is 2 million tons per year and the need in thirty years will be 1.4 billion tons or a 700 fold increase. How will 700 new copper mines affect the environment. This is only one of the many metals that will be needed build the windmills, solar panels and EV's to meet the new green deal. The need includes zinc, cobalt, iridium, nickel along with a dozen rare earth metals. Rare earth metals are more damaging to the environment than than copper. When all this is accomplished the disposal of all of these elements poses another hazard.

Lies

James Bennet was an editor for the NY Times who was fired because he allowed an Op Ed by Senator Tom Cotton to be published. It was during the 2020 summer riots and Cotton suggested that the National Guard be called in to quell the violence. Bennet's main complaint is that the Time's problem has metastasised from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favor one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether. He goes on to say, One of the glories of embracing illiberalism is that, like Trump, you are always right about everything, and so you are justified in shouting disagreement down. A major concern about today's national press is that they fail to report both sides of an issue. Perhaps they are afraid of losing their jobs like what happened to Bennet. More often than not the public is misled by the press not because they print something that isn't true but because they leave out part of the story. This is just another way of taking things out of context to promote a certain view. The press has become so adept at doing this that the country has lost its main line of defense against government lies. The press has become complicit in spreading half truths.

America

It is time for a review of recent history, in particular the 20th Century. The United States led the free world through two wars and the great depression and as WW 2 came to an end the US was the single power capable of taking over the world. The bombs never hit American and the military machine was in full gear producing tanks, planes and ships in record speed. Instead of trying to take over other countries the US changed over to producing kitchen appliance, cars and homes and then used the profits to rebuild Europe and Japan. Meanwhile the Soviet Union went on the path to spread communism around the globe by taking countries by force. The new Soviet Empire included Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. It was a cold war between communism and free market capitalism. In time other countries seeing the success of the Soviets turned toward communism. Countries like North Korea, North Vietnam, China and Cuba. By the 1990's the only communist countries to prosper were China and Vietnam and they did so by going to a free market economy while maintaining their communist government. Today as the world enters the reshoring, America can once again step up and save Europe. Because of lack of energy and declines in population, Europe's economy is in decline while North America will enter an era of unprecedented growth. America will become the customers of the rest of the world and allow Europe to get through some trying times by exporting to the US market. America blessed with the most diversified populace and the freedoms awarded by the constitution stands on the precipice of revitalizing the world. The US government must step aside and use its powers to protect the country from foreign invaders, guarantee a level playing field for the free market and guard against corruption. Young people entering the work market today will see the middle income groups with good paying jobs including benefits much like things were in the 1950's. As prosperity increases those who are always putting down America will fade away. The American dream will be revitalized and the working people who built the country will rebuild.

Location

The US government for many years has been sending illegal migrants crossing the southern border to various cities within the continental United States. Since President Biden took office about 7 million illegals have come into the country. Over the past year Governor Abbott of Texas has sent 80,000 migrants to norther cities. Up until about a year ago the influx of migrants was not a big story, except on Fox News, but that all changed when the Governor got into the action. It seems that relocating immigrants is not the problem but who is doing the relocating is the problem.

Drop box

The use of ballot drop boxes is a recent practice and growing rapidly. During the 2016 general election, nearly 16% of voters nationwide cast their ballot using drop boxes. Four years later, with many more states providing access to ballot drop boxes, over 40% of absentee voters cast their ballot using ballot drop boxes and more than 10% of the votes in the 2020 general election were returned using drop boxes For the first time ever, you can now see where and when more than 550,000 Georgians used nearly 300 boxes across 112 counties. This is a significant number since the democrat Senate candidate Ossoff beat the republican candidate Purdue by only 88,000 votes. Many drop boxes have video cameras and they show people coming during the night and putting in hands full of ballots. Non profits send out ballot applications to voters homes. One such group called Center for Voter Information (CVI) has come under scrutiny. The purpose is to register voters and promote mail in voting. The nonprofits aim to send 340 million pieces of mail this election cycle, with a focus on two dozen key states. Tom Lopach, the CEO of CVI defended his role and said he is filling a hole left by local election operations. “The sad reality is that underfunded state and county election offices don’t have the resources to run voter registration programs,” Lopach said. “Beyond pointing unregistered voters to their websites, or trying to do outdoor registration drives in a pandemic, election officials are unprepared and incapable of finding and registering eligible Americans who are not participating in democracy.”

Children

Back in 2018 the Trump administration lost track of 1,500 migrant children and they were roundly criticized. In the past years the Biden administration has lost 85,000 migrant children but not much in the news about it. When an unaccompanied child crosses the border the government releases them to relatives and then follows up but in the follow up 85,000 went missing. The United States is a source and transit country, and is also considered one of the top destination points for victims of child trafficking and exploitation.

Oil

One of the advantages of globalization was the fact that the US Navy guaranteed the safety of the oceans and when the fall of the Soviet Union ended globalization it open the door for pirates. The situation in the Red Sea where the Houthis are threatening shipping will lead to insurance companies refusing coverage on any ships going into that area. That will put a stop to about one/fifth of the worlds oil which will cause the price to rise to $90.

Africa

How do people from Sub Sahara Africa make their way to the US southern border. Social media tells them to fly to Nicaragua and then travel though 500 miles of jungle in Honduras and Guatemala to the Mexican/US border and then another 2,000 miles across Mexico which is mostly desert to El Paso, TX. These are Black Africans who have left their homes and used up their life's savings to make this treacherous journey to come to the United States. The same United States that is afflicted with systemic racism. Where Black American citizens kneel during the Anthem to demonstrate the unfair way they are treated. Where the police attack Black citizens just because they are Black. Where Black wages are lower than Whites and Black students perform more poorly than Whites. Where Blacks are disproportionately found in prisons. While the US has a long way to go to overcome racism the country has made great progress and these new migrants recognize that, something that many Black citizens do not understand.

Cancel

There are news reports that teachers at Harvard are afraid to say what they think about different issues. Their concerns are highlighted by what happened to a dean who spoke out. Leslie Neal-Boylan, the dean of the nursing school at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, was allegedly fired after she received backlash from a student about an email to the campus community saying "EVERYONE'S LIFE MATTERS." "Recent events recall a tragic history of racism and bias that continue to thrive in this country. I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone. BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE'S LIFE MATTERS." This is not limited to professors as there are many high school teachers who keep silent out of fear of being ridiculed or accused of being trouble makers. Some people feel that cancel culture is not real but not so Leslie Neal Boylan

Global warming

On September 11, 2023 Biden said, The only existential threat humanity faces even more frightening than a nuclear was is global warming going above 1.5 degrees. That's be real trouble. There's no way back from that. And so, there's a lot we can do in the meantime. So what are we doing. Dry gas production will rise to 103.68 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2023 and 105.12bcf/d in 2024, up from a record 99.60bcf/d in 2022, according to the EIA's latest estimates.Nov 9, 2023 Therefore, as against the increased coal demand, domestic coal production has also increased. In 2022-23, the domestic coal production increased by 14.77% to reach 893.19 MT from 778.21 MT in 2021-22. U.S. oil production is forecast to average an all-time high of 12.8 million barrels a day this year and keep growing to 13.1 million in 2024, the federal Energy Information Administration said in its latest forecast. This is the result of government policy but individuals share some of the responsibility. We are living in 2,000 sq ft homes on two acre lots in the country 20 miles from work where we commute everyday in our SUV's and trucks. We have recreational toys like four wheelers and boats and our garages are filled with lawn care aids like mowers, edgers and leaf blowers and we have automatic watering systems to soak up the fertilizer and herbicides and to top it off many of us have another house with another yard. There is a lot of talk about the rising temeratures but not much action.

Proof

Sometimes people are afraid to come to certain conclusions because they don't have proof. Such is the case with the origin of the Covid and the blackmail claim against Jeffrey Epstein. Common sense tells a story but without proof people are hesitant. Suddenly near the end of 2019 a new virus appeared in Wuhan, China and it just so happens that there was a viral lab in that city working on developing new viruses like the new one that appeared. The conclusion was that the virus came from a nearby meat market. Jeffrey Epstein said he made his money in the market but no one on Wall Street ever heard of him. He convinced billionaires to turn over their money to him and he made millions. He had a private island where he flew underage girls to and then brought his friends there but any suggestion that he blackmailed these rich guys is just conspiracy theory stuff. He was convicted of sexual activities with underage girls in 2008 but he continued to manage money for billionaires because there was no proof that he had dirt on them.

Lab

It is quite interesting to see how news events change as more information is uncovered. Things like the Covid lab leak, the George Floyd death in MPLS, the January 6 revolution, the Jussie Smollett attack in Chicago, the Michael Brown attack in Ferguson, the Duke lacrosse team rape of a Black girl and many others going all the way back to 1987 when Tawana Brawley claimed she was raped and Rev Al Sharpton got caught up in the sham and became famous for being wrong. More recently is the Hunter Biden laptop which was deemed Russian disinformation but later verified by the FBI and the hospital bombing by the Jews which turned out to be wrong. Notice how some of these events caused a minor stir but others created major problems leading to death and destruction. Who, if anyone, pays the penalty for these reactions before the whole story is revealed. These things happen because the reporters have a preconceived notion as to what the story is about and without further investigation they publish what they think is going on instead of waiting for facts to confirm what they think. Once that is done and future facts discredit their reporting they must then retract what they said or double down and most often they double down. Here is the latest on the lab leak from March 2, 2023 The WHO on Friday urged all countries to reveal what they know about the origins of Covid-19, following US claims of a Chinese lab leak and furious denials from Beijing.FBI director Christopher Wray told Fox News television on Tuesday that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had now assessed the source of the Covid-19 pandemic was "most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan". You have to do a deep dive on the Internet to find this information and the press in general does not want to cover the story.

Users decide

There is much discussion about controlling information on social platforms. The obvious answer is to put content moderation in the hands of users. If you decide you do not want your Tweets next to an ad from the My Pillow Guy then you as the user notify Twitter and they will follow your request. If you don't want your Tweets next to any political campaign ads then say so. As long as the platform follows the request of the users everything will be fine. Each day more information is revealed showing how various government agencies are using private companies and NGO's to influence what platforms can show. This is unconstitutional and as these things are exposed actions to prevent such indirect censorship will stop. The government cannot be trusted and exposing these activities is the best way to stop it.

News

The modern day press in the United States is bias not necessarily in what they report but in what they do not report. This happens when the press has an agenda or as some say if you set a predetermined course to reach a predetermined conclusion you will always get there. The procedure is to report all information that confirms your goal and then, most importantly, to not report any news that may conflict with your goal. This can be seen almost daily if you watch both MSNBC and Fox News. If you don't watch more than one source you will never know what you are missing. Thus the conclusion is to watch many different sources.

Assange

Since the US justice system is not perfect most people feel that the law should err on the side of the victim meaning that it is better to let a criminal go free than to have an innocent person in prison. Many feel the same way about national security and the right to privacy. They feel that it is better to risk the release of government secrets than to have too many secrets. The case of Julian Assange is an example. Assange was given information from an US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning that was secret and he published that info in WikiLeaks which he founded in 2006. While there is little doubt that Manning committed criminal acts the question is did Assange. In the Daniel Ellsberg case in the 70's Ellsberg obtained the information himself and then released it to the public. He was charged under the Espionage Act but was later released because of government misconduct. The Assange case is now coming up where he contends misconduct on the part of government. Assange was hold up in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he assumed his conversations were private but somehow these conversations got into the hand of US government officials and they used that to charge him.

China

In the West and in particular in the United States the path from pre industrial to industrial took about 7 generations as people over time moved from the farm to smaller cities and then to larger cities. This allowed for proper growth and expansion as the population kept pace with the jobs and the new skills needed had time to evolve. China, using the advanced technology available to them achieve the same growth in two generations but it was so rapid that the work force could not keep up. Added to the problem was the government decision to install a one child policy. The result was very rapid growth for forty years which will now be followed by stagnant growth because there are too few people of working age and to many people too old to work. Add to that the fact that China kept their GDP rising by build all sorts of structures, regardless of the need, and ended up with a billion empty living spaces including homes and apartments. Then they started what was called the Belt and Road Initiative where they were building all sorts of projects around the world and those have been left unfinished and resulted in over a trillion dollars in loses. Then they shut down too much of the country because of Covid. It was one mistaken government policy after another and now China is headed for serious trouble. They can work on some of these problems but it is too late to do anything about the shortage of workers. China is not open to immigration because of their culture. Having one man in control who is isolated from reality because his underlings are fearful of exposing the problems to him as resulted in disaster.

Oil

There is a saying politics that if you try to please too many you please no one. The Biden Administration plans to reduce oil drilling in the gulf. The five-year drilling plan “represents the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. Industry trade group the American Petroleum Institute (API) criticized the plan as a “step in the wrong direction” in a statement. Environmental groups also took issue with the plan, with the ocean conservation groups hitting the administration for allowing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a reduction in the plan that Trump set up five years ago.

Power

IN 2020 the FCC awarded a $900 million dollar grant to Starlink to provide Internet service to rural area which included 600,000 users in 36 states. This would later be expanded to millions of users. This will require additional satellites over the coming years. President Biden promised a more equitable Internet access but his funding was slashed with the final version offering no money for locally run internet services. This week the FCC canceled the agreement with Starlink with no replacement plan. There is thus no plan to offer Internet to these rural areas. This like most things these days has taken on a political tone as Musk released the infamous Twitter files, which showed the White House conspiring to censor communications on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. According the The Hill an left leaning news group. Biden is throwing everything it can find at Musk, hoping that the endless barrage of regulatory, reputational and legal attacks will cause the world’s wealthiest man to kneel before its authority. The viciousness of the investigations being conducted by the Department of Justice, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service against a successful American business leader is unprecedented. It says much more about the vindictive nature of Joe Biden than it does about the founder of Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company. The real power of the government resides within the bureaucracy.

Worry

The old saying, ignorance is bliss, should not be laughed off lightly. In today's world the people who pay attention to the news refer to those who don't euphemistically as low information voters. In reality they use that political correct talk to cover the fact that they see these people as ignorant. The result is that the informed citizen sees the choice between Trump and Biden as a disaster either way and they worry that the world will come to an end if either of these men are elected. They are so wrapped up in their worries that they forget that the world will go right along it's merry way and in four years they will have a whole new batch to fret over. All the while this trauma is dragging them down the uninformed will fill their lives with such mundane activities like trying to pay the light bill. They understand that parents are much like presidents in that neither has the control they think they do. Parents take too much credit for the things their children do right and too much blame for the things they do wrong. Presidents think they are running the country but in fact the country is running on autopilot. Presidents take credit for things that go right and blame others for things that go wrong and in most cases they had very little to do with either. A message to all those worry warts, relax, take it easy, this too shall pass.

Solar

It is not unusual for government programs to be infested with scandal and the solar panel tax credit inside the Inflation Reduction Act is no exception. The government will guarantee loans for solar panels to qualified home owners but the word qualified has been distorted much like the qualifications for home loans during the financial crisis of 2008 where anyone qualified. Elderly people are being targeted by solar sales companies and they are being confused by double talk into thinking they are getting government paid for solar panels. In reality they are signing up for long term loans with banks who are willing to loan knowing the loans are backed up by the government in case of default. People who are licensed financial planners are subject to something called suitability. You cannot sell something to a person which is not suitable. Selling solar panels with a 30% tax credit to someone who owes no taxes is not suitable. Making them think they are getting panels free when in truth they are taking out a long term loan to pay for them is taking advantage of elderly people and is also not suitable.

Shoot

Telling Israel to limit civilian casualties while they conduct war is like telling a home owner defending his family against an intruder to shoot in the leg. Remarks like these are made by people who have little knowledge or experience in either war or self defense.

Newsom

There is a lot of speculation that Governor Newsom of California will run for president in 2028. If that is the case he will be hoping that Trump wins in 2024. If Trump wins that gets rid of VP Harris. If Biden wins and makes it through 4 year then Harris as VP is the heir apparent for 2028 and the democrats cannot push aside a Black female for a White male. If Biden doesn't finish the four years then Harris is president and Newsom would not dare to run against her. That is the power of identity politics. Equity is more important than ability.

Carbon neutral

The United States used 4,000 terawatts of energy in 2022. Industrial 32% or 1,280 terawatts Transportation 29% or 1,160 terawatts Residential 20% or 800 terawatts Commercial 18% or 720 terawatts The electrical grid is currently under stress because of the load and when windmills and solar panels replace power plants the distance from the source to the use point is much greater putting additional stress on the grid. If EV's take over the transportation power will be added to the grid. Even if enough new electrical power was generated to meet the goals the grid would not be able to move the power. To understand the enormity of the problem consider just one neighborhood where everyone is charging their cars at night during off peak hours. It would mean new power lines to each home and new transformers on all the polls. The current transformers use the night hours to cool down and that would no longer be possible. Multiply this by millions of neighborhoods and then add in all of the industrial usage and the entire grid would have to be upgraded and in most areas replaced. Then add in the electrical power needed to replace the heating of all homes and businesses that currently use natural gas. The answer is small nuclear power plants located near the use points and using the excess power to produce hydrogen which can be converted natural gas and diesel to power the transportation. EV's cannot do the job. Using hydrogen to produce natural gas and diesel is carbon neutral.

Drill

The Dow has now climbed up to its all time high that it achieved two years ago. As onshoring continues the economy will continue to grow. The US has now reached an all time high of 13.2 million barrels of oil per day which will bring down the cost of transportation and will help to offset the inflation that will accompany onshoring. OPEC will cut production by 2 million barrels per day starting in January to try and bring up the price of oil. The US is still exporting 4 million barrels per day of fracked oil and importing 4 million from other countries. The US exports are light sweet oil from fracking while imports are heavy sour oil. This is best for the world because the US can clean up sour (high sulfur) where other countries cannot. The US can produce 15 million barrels per day and should move in that direction. The first step should be to open the ten million acres in Alaska to drilling. These were opened by Trump but blocked by Biden. It's an exercise in futility to stop oil drilling here while China is building two new coal fired plants per week. The next biggest help is to increase exports of natural gas by speeding up the construction, which is now underway, of LNG export facilities.

Trust

Many people complained over the years that their Twitter account was censored but there was not much they could do about it because Twitter, being a private company, could not be charged with censorship. This however exploded by accident when Musk bought Twitter and discovered that various government agencies were putting pressure on Twitter to censor. The government referred to certain information as misinformation and suggested that this be banned. This included a lot of info about Covid, some of which was true but the government thought it would discourage people from getting the vax and suggested that banning would protect Americans from getting Covid. One definition of Fascism is government colluding with private business. Were from the government and we are here to help. Twitter went along with this and it was only exposed when Musk bought the company. A recent poll (Sept 2023) shows trust in government at a 70 year low with just 16% saying the trust the government at least most of the time.

Hydrogen

Once nuclear power becomes the dominant source of power, then hydrogen will be produced by the electrolysis of water. Hydrogen can be used in two ways for transportation. First is direct hydrogen burning engines and second combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons like jet and diesel fuel. The first would be used in cars and small trucks along with recreation vehicles and small yard tools. The tank in a hydrogen car is 30 gallons and the car can travel 400 miles. The hydrogen is stored in a carbon fiber tank at 10,000 PSI. The second for airplanes, heavy farm and military equipment, ocean liners and rail locomotives. The process of making hydrocarbons means taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and combining that with hydrogen and burning the hydrocarbons and releasing the CO2 back into the atmosphere. It is carbon neutral. To use hydrogen in planes and such requires liquefying the hydrogen to reduce storage space and that is too costly. As an added benefit sea water can be used as the source and not use up valuable fresh water and and the excess energy from nuclear plants can be used to desalt sea water and grow crops in desert areas.

Speech

Some Ivy league schools are under attack for not expressing their concern for the treatment of Jewish students on campus saying they are not providing a safe place for them. This type of prejudice is not acceptable to most people but it does not mean these university presidents should be fired. They have the right to free speech and should not be punished for expressing their opinions. They can be fired if the board of directors decides these presidents no longer represent the policies of the schools but not for what they said. If you work for a private company you have the right to say your products are no good or even harmful but you can be fired because your comments hurt sales and thus stock holders who in turn can ask the board of directors to fire you. If this seems like a distinction without a difference consider that you own the company and you can say what you want without fearing getting fired.

White

The Jews, of all people, have now been burdened with another set back. They are White. White/Caucasian is a term used to describe a person having origins in any of the original peoples or Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. Skin color in these areas varies from light to dark complexion. There is as much difference in North African skin color as there is between Scandinavians and Italians. There are Jews with light skin and dark skin but as of today they are all White. If you look at the people is the Middle East you can see Jews with darker skin than many Palestinians but that will not matter because the Jews are considered the oppressors so that makes them White. It is the same with Asians and Blacks. The difference in skin color between Northern India and Southern India is stark going from very dark to very light. The same is true in Africa. A team of geneticists led by Sarah Tishkoff, a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, has shown that there is a huge amount of variation of skin color within Africa, ranging from skin as light as some Asians to the darkest skin on a global level.

Interest

The oldest baby boomers started retiring in 2012 and about half have now retired. A mans wealth is highest in his ages 55 to 65. That is when he has his investments in stocks and means there is a large supply of capital for investment purposes. When he retires he moves that money into safe areas like Fed bonds and it is no longer available for investment. As the next half retire the available capital will continue to decrease and thus interest rates will rise regardless of what the Fed does. This is coming at time when the country will double its industrial base which will put more pressure on the need for capital and further increase interest rates. In ten years when all the boomers have retired things will settled down and the economy will expand rapidly. This is great news for young people coming into the market today.

Power

The people in power always want to get more power and the new green deal was one way. They would use the front of climate change to introduce more government control. This has now advanced to stage two where National Asset Companies are formed to securitize natural resources like farm land once again under the guise of saving the earth from climate change. The main control in the constitution to prevent this concentration of power is the press but they have been sidelined by their ownership and lack of courage by individual reporters so the only option to slow down this take over is an informed electorate. The status quo will be maintained by keeping citizens in their separate corners and calling out any challenges to the system as conspiracy theorist and misinformation. The one way this plan can run into difficulty is if they go to far to fast. This may be coming as the latest move to force people into EV's may be a bridge too far. Americans stood by while toilets, light bulb, gas stoves and even demanding Covid shots but there is a limit to what people will put up with and EV's may be the beginning.

Money and power

The Bureau of Investigations was started in 1908 to protect the country from major crimes including terrorism. In 1935 J Edger Hoover took over and changed the name to the Federal Bureau of Investigation which we know today as the FBI. During the 1920's the Bureau developed a symbiotic relationship with organized crime and the two units helped one another in their own ways. During WW2 this relationship grew and the Mafia helped uncover spies and saboteurs. Early on the mob became aware that Hoover was bi sexual and they used to maintain power over him. Hoover realizing how effective this blackmail scheme was began himself to collect embarrassing information on various groups. This led over time to collecting discrediting items on thousands of people citizens and non citizens. Soon this type of activity found its way to other government agencies in particular the CIA. Periodically illegal activities would rise to the surface and require investigation by congress. Action would be taken and soon after the same type of activity would spring up under a different name. One of the more infamous was the 1975 Senate Church Committee investigation. The committee faced a formidable task: to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of the nation’s most secret agencies and programs, and based on those findings, write a detailed report including legislative recommendations. The result was  “intelligence excesses, at home and abroad,” were not the “product of any single party, administration, or man,” but had developed as America rose to a become a superpower during a global Cold War. The subterfuge went underground but continues to this day. A recent example is Jeffrey Epstein a man accused of sex trafficking minors but he was also involved in a giant Ponzi scheme where thousands of investors were bilked out of hundreds of millions. Much of this money was put in the hands of politicians who used it to finance reelections. It was the same old ploy of using sex to blackmail and then paying politicians for protection. Epstein's partner went to jail but he did not. In the 1980's the government secretly formed an alliance with Silicone Valley much like they had with organized crime and this partnership exist today. The connection between government, social media, industry and politics is well established and is designed to concentrate money and power at the expense of the taxpayers.

Wheat

Most people today do not realize that in 1960 you could trade a bushel of wheat for a barrel of oil because they both sold for $3. Today oil has gone from $3 to $70 but wheat has only gone from $3 to $7. The big difference is fertilizer. In 1960 wheat was 60 bushels per acre but today it is 180 bushels. If you do the math $3 per bushel at 60 bushels per acre is $180 per acre. Today at $7 per bushel and 180 bushels per acre is $1,260 per acre. From 180 to 1,260 is 700% increase and oil from 3 to 70 is 2,300% increase. The difference is that it cost 500% more to frack oil than to drill oil. If oil drops to $50 then fracking is no longer profitable. Long term oil must be replaced, first by natural gas and finally nuclear.

World order

As WW 2 came to an end world leaders tried to bring all countries together to prevent further wars. The main idea was that if countries were dependent on one another economically they would be less likely to go to war. This led to various agencies designed to promote cooperation and peaceful coexistence First came the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1944 and this was closely followed by the United Nations in 1948. This sort of thing continued with the World Economic Forum in 1977 and the World Trade Organization in 1995 and the International Criminal Court in 1999. The stated goal was to promote global peace and prosperity, including governance of international security, trade and monetary policy all forming a part of the liberal world order. This was all part of what became known as globalization and was fostered by political leaders and large corporations. The results were clear. The rich got richer and the middle income groups suffered. The super poor were winners as they moved out of poverty. The first crack in this grand world order came in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and the second was the election of Trump in 2016. He was an outsider and not part of the globalist group. He saw how China manipulated their currency and subsidized their industry to push others into bankruptcy. Trump placed tariffs on China and these were continued under Biden. The rich and powerful who had been gaining control since 1944 now found it harder to maintain their positions. They will not go quietly.

farms

There is a new financial product on the horizon called Natural Asset Companies (NAC's). These will be started by groups of wealthy investors who will buy natural assets and hold the rights to manage these assets. They could be things like forest, wetland, coral reefs and farms. In time they would expand into other assets. They will be sold to the public using much the same approach that environmental companies use in that they will be protecting the earth but detractors say these groups want to own the earth. Take one example. In time these wealthy individuals will slowly buy up all the farm land which would lead to a monopoly on the food supply. Today, the USDA estimates that 30% of American farmland is owned by non-operators who lease it out to farmers. The medium age for the American farmer is 55 and in the next five years some 92 million acres will change hands with much of it passing to investors rather than traditional farmers. The children of farmers do not want to stay on the farm so the land will be sold to corporations. These NAC's will be offered on the New York stock exchange in the form of Initial Public Offerings (IPO's) but a hand full of investors will maintain control. By monopolizing the food supply they can raise prices and pay dividends to their investors while maintaining control.

Floyd

John McWhorter is a Black professor at Columbia University who describes himself as a cranky liberal Democrat supporter of Obama and gay marriage and never voted for Bush left of center voter. He has recently changed his mind about the George Floyd murder charge. He says the new body camera footage shows that Floyd was saying I can't breath while sitting in his car. He says that the autopsy showed no bruise marks on Floyds neck and contrary to what was reported in court and not challenged was that the service manual shows pictures of how an officer should put his knee on the shoulder of a suspect. The autopsy says the cause of death was a heart attack. The man was an overweight, heavy smoker who was high on fentanyl and had a history of heart trouble. During the trial large crowds gathered outside the courthouse threatening that there must be a guilty verdict. McWhorter has concluded that this was not a fair trial but that is water over the dam. It seems that often, long after an event certain new information is made available which challenges the original understanding of what happened. In the aftermath of the Floyd trial people wonder what would have happened if Floyd were found not guilty.

Africa

The discussions surrounding climate change can be seen in a different light from 30,000 feet. The great advancements in human life have occurred primarily because of fossil fuel energy. It resulted in the industrial revolution and the ability to free people from the farm to invent and innovate in ways undreamed of in earlier times. It put the lie to the Malthusian theory that the world would not be able to feed future generations. Henry Ford proved the dire predictions of Karl Marx wrong when he introduced the assemble line and the $5 per day pay which allowed the producers of goods to be the consumers of goods. It allowed the flourishing of life and this will continue with new ways yet developed by what economist call creators of value. In recent years another view has become popular based on the idea that humans are bad and will destroy the planet. The battle lines are drawn between the economist who seen flourishing and biologist who see destruction and each runs to their political equivalent side to get ready to fight. The people in the developed countries of the West seem oblivious to the hardship that getting rid of fossil fuels would cause the peoples in the undeveloped places like Africa and parts of Asia. The West has been though the glory days of coal and now want to forbid those newbies from the same advantages. They want to save these people from the evils of air pollution by keeping them from achieving the successes of having lights at night and heat in the cold. Many of these people are still burning wood and dung to survive. About three billion people in Africa and Asia use wood, dung and sometimes coal to cook and heat their homes. These homes have poor ventilation and the smoke causes many respiratory diseases, including lung cancer. The ashes which contain heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead are spread in their gardens and subsequently ingested. If the US goes to zero carbon these people will still be in dire straights. Viewing the world from 30,000 feet reveals a different perspective but one that is rarely discussed. Bringing electricity to these villages using small nuclear reactors, which need no water, would by pass the coal and oil stage and bring them into the 21st Century with clear air.

New voters

I have talked at length about ballot harvesting and how that could determine the outcome of the 24 election. I signed a petition for Robert Kennedy to see what was going on and today I receive a request to help his campaign. Here is one of the things they want me to do. Sign up for training to collect ballot access signatures in your state. The idea is to get enough signatures to get Kennedy on the MN ballot. In doing this it would open the door for me to go later with ballots and help to fill them out and even promise to mail them. They would all be properly signed by registered voters many of whom might be first time voters.

Epstein

The bizarre case of Jeffery Epstein. He was good at math and got a job teaching at a prestigious high school where met the parents, many of whom where influential people. He was considered overly friendly with the female students but in time was discharged for poor performance. One of the men he befriended was Ace Greenberg an officer at Bear Sterns. He got a job there and in just four years became a senior partner in 1980. Within a year he started his own firm and would only accept clients who had more than one billion dollars to invest. In addition he demanded power of attorney from each of his clients. He had a couple of hundred employees but he personally handled the financial matter of each of them. These clients allowed him access to many rich and powerful men. In 2005 a 14 year old girl told her parents that Epstein had assaulted her and they went to the police. 40 girls between the ages of 13 and 16 came forth and told of being assaulted. In 2007 he was given a plea deal to spend 13 months in the county jail. The Miami DA Alex Acosta allowed Epstein to leave the jail 12 to 15 hours each day even though the law did not allow leave for sex offenders. The victims which now totaled 80 were not told of the plea deal. In addition a deal was made that said any and all future defendants would have immunity. Many surmised that this would prevent any of his associates from future prosecution. All of this led many people to assume that Epstein was blackmailing his clients and their powerful friends with the evidence that they were sexually involved with underage girls. How many billionaires would turn all of their money over to one man and then give him power of attorney to do with the money what he wanted. How many DA's would give immunity to all future defendants without even knowing whom they might be. All of this gives credence to the idea that Epstein did not commit suicide while in jail but was murder to keep him from releasing the names of his influential clients. Is there a two tiered justice system in the United States. Do the rich and powerful get special treatment.

Equity

Sports the last bastion of merit ...the rest of the country has been infected with equity. When your goal is equal results you remove the striving for excellence. The 500 best basketball players in the world are in the NBA. There is no one there because of their father, because of family connections or power and money. They are there for one reason. They are the best in the world at what they do and the day that someone comes along that can do it better they are gone. Everywhere real or perceived inequality exist the first remedy is to lower the bar. In a free market economy there will be people who work hard and go the extra mile and others who will do the minimum required to get by but the hard workers should be rewarded and not punished. The famous sports writer Grantland Rice expressed it best when he wrote. When the Great Scorekeeper in the sky Comes to write beside your name He'll ask not whether you won or lost But how you played the game

Regulations

It was President Obama who discovered that there were no shovel ready jobs but people who understand how government regulators were not surprised. This will be a stumbling block to reshoring unless things change. It is not just regulations but includes the fact that new things must be introduced in ways that business and the public understand. Here is a recent example. Congress at the urging of the Biden administration agreed in 2021 to spend $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country, aiming to appease anxious drivers while tackling climate change. Two years later, the program has yet to install a single charger. This will not be a problem because people don't want electric cars. Maybe if they slow things down they will be able to install natural gas pumps and cars can be modified to run on methane.

Argue

In my younger days I argued a lot with just about anybody and I was quite certain that my position on issues was right. Rarely if ever did I change my mind or change anyone else mind but in the end I would say we agree to disagree. I didn't become disagreeable. I didn't accuse people of being ignorant. I didn't call them derogatory names. In today's world things are much different. Today arguments may end in threats. You may be discredited on social media or worse lose your job. What happened to civil discourse. Its my way or the high way. As years passed I came to understand that I was not always right or more importantly I came to understand that there isn't always a right way. As you live longer there are more times that you realize that what you used to believe you no longer believe. Sometimes the changes are minimal but sometimes they are substantial. Often times changes in beliefs occur gradually over time when no one is suggesting you change. Once the ego gets out of the way it becomes easier to see things in a new light.

Puzzlement

The misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which in fact, is large subsidies to expedite reshoring of manufacturing to the United States is underway and a large portion is directed to help the transition to wind and solar. The materials used in wind and solar manufacturing come from outside the US and if the country wants secure supply chains this will have to change. This means mining in the US and therein lies a problem as the same people who want clean air and water are the ones that want wind and solar. Mining often causes pollution of land, water, and air, spread of toxic wastes, water depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and social disruption. Despite the fact that it is subject to federal and state environmental regulations, metal mining is the number one toxic polluter in the U.S. To meet the expected demand for lithium, nickel and cobalt one analysis projected that 384 new mines would be needed. This says nothing about the rare earths which are some of the dirties mines and other elements like copper. To quote the King and I, is a puzzlement.

Data

A whistle blower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook files in scale and importance. They describe the activities of an anti-disinformation group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League,or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Departments of Homeland Security. I had not heard of this CTIL so I looked it up and here is what I found. In this way, we are acting as a national, state and local catalyst to enable accelerated actions and progress towards long-term impact. Our strategy is to quickly and iteratively learn, test, and validate solutions with local communities, then work with broader community stakeholders to bring solutions to a global scale. In plain English that gobbledygook this means gathering lots of data on everyone.

FBI

I could easily be accused of being a conspiracy theorist because I believe that non-elected bureaucrats have too much power. Here is how they work. According to the constitution, congress has oversight power to investigate these bureaucrats and this is especially necessary in the Attorney Generals office where the laws of the land are enforced. If the FBI, which reports to the Attorney General, needs oversight the congress is stymied by the FBI saying they cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. They can stonewall. Congress has subpoena power but it is up to the Justice Department which is under the jurisdiction of the Attorney General to enforce subpoena's. The Attorney General can choose not to enforce the subpoena and nothing is done. The congress subpoenaed Attorney Genreal Eric Holder but he never showed and the congress could do nothing about it. When this kind of standoff occurs the congress is stopped dead in its tracks. The only other recourse is impeachment and that requires a two/thirds vote in the senate and the way government is divided today that is impossible. Simply stated, the power of the executive branch can only be controlled by impeachment. Congressional oversight means very little without enforcement power. If the FBI has done something illegal the president can hide this with impunity and over the years the FBI has done plenty of things that were illegal.

Antibiotics

There is a bacterial pneumonia spreading rapidly across China and it has now appeared in the West. Many are not aware that Chinese people use antibiotics for almost every illness and they can buy them over the counter. The concern centers around a fear that scientist have expressed for many years and have warned people not to use antibiotics indiscriminately. The concern is that a new bacteria that is immune to existing antibiotics may have evolved. Once this is discovered there are medical procedures that allow the development of new antibiotics but this many take time. This new bacteria is most dangerous for children.

Guns

The is a similarity between abortion rights and gun rights. Gun control advocates say they want background checks on all gun sales. This is a reasonable request so why does the NRA object. They are concerned that when they agree to that then next will be a ban on certain guns and then a ban on high capacity magazines. They say this slippery slope will continue until there is a ban on all guns. The abortion advocates will not give a time during the gestation period is too late for abortion because what ever that day is the anti abortion people will say what about the day before that and the day before that and so on. This is why neither side will yield even though polls show that the majority of people want to ban certain guns and the majority of people want to set a date usually 15 weeks. When people find themselves in a position where they cannot compromise for what ever reason then the result is stalemate. So each side can talk about how unreasonable the other side is and that is just what has been going on for years. Anti gun people will not be satisfied until all guns are banned and anti abortion people will not be satisfied until all abortions are banned and neither group will admit that is their goal.

Women

There is a lot of consternation among certain people that women's groups remain silent regarding the rape of Israeli woman and girls by the Hamas invaders. There should be no surprise. The fact that women's groups are political and not about women was well established in the Monica Lewinski case. It was reinforced with the difference in the reaction against Justice Cavanaugh and Me Too movement. Like so many things in the world today it is about politics.

Face book

There is a group called National Security State which encompasses the Deep State but includes private contractors and silicon valley companies. Back in the Vietnam era the financial arm of the CIA called InQtel worked with private companies to use the newly formed Internet to gather information on what they called dissidents. This was known as the Phoenix program and was used regularly in programs like the Iran Contra affair. Palantir Technologies is a public American company that specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel. Its purpose was to gather information on people who were deemed to be dissidents. This led to a company called Main Core. When this company was discovered various groups like the ACLU objected to congress and it was defunded saying it was at threat to the constitution. Shortly thereafter a new company funded once again by Peter Thiel. He was joined by Richard Perle and Admiral Poindexter and they formed a new company called Total Information Awareness (TIA) which replaced the unfunded Main Core. At that time a new company called Life Log was formed to continue gathering information on various citizens TIA is a new technology under development that plans to use data mining technologies to sift through personal transactions in electronic data to find patterns and associations connected to terrorist threats and activities. Data mining technologies are currently used by federal agencies for various purposes. In 2006THE PENTAGON CANCELED its so-called LifeLog project, an ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence. The next day Face Book came open to the public. Many say that the CIA has a relationship with Face Book and other social media platforms and some of this came out when Musk purchased Twitter.

Epstein

The story of Jeffery Epstein is filled with intrigue and mystery. Starting many years ago with J Edgar Hoover the FBI would collect embarrassing information on people in power to hold over them when it was deemed necessary. There is evidence that Epstein got his start digging dirt for the FBI. He was later able to use that information for his personal benefit. He had a game he called, playing the box, which insured that even if he were uncovered the victim could not do anything for fear of the release of embarrassing information. In the late 80's and 90's he developed a Ponzi scheme that collapsed and his three partners Steven Hoffenberg, Michael Brater and Michael Rosoff went to prison but Epstein was not charged even though his partners testified against him. Shortly after that Epstein was visiting Clinton in the White House where he was collecting money for various political campaigns. It is suggested that he used the same blackmailing techniques to collect campaign funds that he uses to fund his Ponzi plan. Most of his blackmail information revolved around his private island where he kept young women to entertain VIP's that he brought to the island. It is here where video tapes were collected on various individuals to be used later to solicit funds for various groups. Having large sums of money to spread around allowed him to maintain his power. While there are many individuals who had motives to kill him the more interesting one is the fact that the government did want their involvement revealed and thus the government also had a motive to get rid of Epstein.

Disinformation

Does the claim of disinformation threatens free speech. During Covid Dr Bhattacharya a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University was banned from social media for expressing his opinion that Covid could be spread even if you are vaxed and was called fringe because he said herd immunity was valid. He said the main efforts to fight Covid should be directed at the elderly and closing schools did not make sense. He maintained that lock downs were not helpful and in fact were dangerous. Since that time Johns Hopkins University has completed an extensive study. The conclusion of the Johns Hopkins study, that, on average, lockdowns caused a reduction in COVID deaths of only 2/10 of 1%. The danger here is not that he was banned from social media as they are a private company and cannot be charged with censorship but that these companies were influenced by government to ban certain people and certain ideas. Twitter's ban on "COVID-19 misinformation," mirrored the Biden administration's broad definition of that category in two important respects: It disfavored perspectives that dissented from official advice, and it encompassed not just demonstrably false statements but also speech that was deemed "misleading" even when it was arguably or verifiably true.

Policies

Of all sad words of tongue and pen The saddest are these It might have been Sometimes regrets allow us to play the what if game. We cannot say what if Trump had been reelected as that would be to hard for many to accept but we can do the next best thing and say what would the world look like today if Biden had just continued the Trump policies. First off the country would still be energy independent because fossil fuel production would have been high. This would have kept the price of energy low which would lead to low prices which means low inflation which means the Fed would not have to raise interest rates which means low cost borrowing. The border policies would have remained in place and illegal crossings would be at 40,000 per month instead of 200,000. This would have prevented the sending of migrants to northern cities like New York and Chicago and these city mayors would not be begging the federal government for help. The strong backing of law enforcement including demanding the governors force the district attorney's to enforce the law and that would have kept the crime levels from rising. The first real increase in wages for middle income workers in 40 years would have continued. All the new government regulations imposed in the last three years would not be there and the country would be poised to enter the age of reshoring. The severe sanctions on Iran's financial system along with the ban on oil exports from 2 million barrels per day to 400,000 barrels would have limited Iran's ability to finance their surrogates in Hamas and likely prevent the war. A settlement with Russia agreeing that Ukraine would not be invited to join NATO would have prevented the war. The Abraham Accords would have expanded to include Saudi Arabia and peace in the Middle East would have been closer than ever. This is all pie in the sky but it is based on the simple idea of just continuing policies that were working. The impetus to change policy was led by the New Green Deal. A large group of people on the left convinced Biden that the biggest threat to civilization was climate change and fossil fuels must be replaced by wind and solar. They had a hidden agenda to use climate change to promote social change. This is all coming apart as people realize that windmills and solar panels cannot replace fossil fuel and to add insult to injury people do not want electric cars. It is not to late to regroup and go back to the Trump policies and move toward nuclear power. We can even end the wars by restricting Iran oil sales and keeping Ukraine out of NATO.

Uranium

Uranium that comes from nature is mostly composed of two types (isotopes) called 235 and 238. The 235 is the good stuff but only represents .7% while the 238 is 99.3%. In order to operate a power plant the 235 must be enriched to 5%. This is done by changing it to a gas called uranium hexafloride and spinning it around in a centrifuge. This takes time and money and most of this is done in Russia. At this point Russia is still shipping this product to users around the world. As a side point this enrichment process is what used to make uranium suitable for bombs but the process is not linear. For example it takes just as much time to get one to five percent as it does to get from five to 93% which is what is needed for a bomb. One of the many advantages of using thorium instead of uranium is that you can skip the enrichment process. Using thorium would remove Russia from the supply chain.

Markets

Throughout recent history, free market governments have proven to be notoriously bad at directing economic activity. The great weakness of autocratic countries has been the failure of central planning and the same happens when capitalist countries try to interfere. The most recent example in the US is the electric car fiasco. Starting 20 plus years ago and increasing at an accelerated rate the government has been promoting electric vehicles. Despite the generous subsidies to both manufacturers and consumes the product is not popular. Inventories are building and sales are decreasing. The next failure on the horizon will be windmills and solar panels. Meanwhile a real solution for climate change is on the back burner. It is a slow and painful process but ever so slowly the advantages of nuclear are being recognized.

Debate

As I watched the debate between Governors Newsom and Desantis there was something familiar. Desantis should have won that debate going away but it was considered a draw by many experts. Florida has a budget surplus of $17 billion and California a deficit of $22 billion. California has a state income tax of 13% and Florida has no state income tax. People are leaving California and moving to Florida and Newsom recently escaped a recall vote. So what happened. Newsom has that mysterious quality called charisma and he looks presidential. He is politically correct in his words and is a smooth speaker. If he had chosen a careen in sales he would have been successful. The whole debate was mindful of how personality can beat policy and that is what Trump vs Biden is all about. Something similar happened in the first televised debate between presidential candidates when the warm friendly Kennedy met the cold distant Nixon. How you look and what you say can be more important than what you do.

Read and write

Once in a while something in the news make sense. Major businesses are moving away from requiring college degrees for an increasing number of positions. Instead, they’re focusing on applicants’ skills, experience, passions, and even their cultural fit. Will wonders never cease! Case in point. You have two applicants for a job opening at your business. The first is a college graduate who couldn't find the kind of job she wanted so she is 24 years old and living at home with her parents. Applicant two graduated from high school and went to work stocking shelves at Walmart and now has her own apartment and pays her own light bill. I maintain that most people can do most jobs if they know how to read and write. The rest they can learn on the job but it requires a willingness to work. In the coming years as the country enters the age of reshoring many people will be hired right out of high school and businesses will be thankful to have them.

New ways

The phrase promote the general Welfare appears in the opening paragraph of the Constitution. This has been used to legalize all the many benefits the government has bequeathed to the public. Over the past few years presidents have used this and their emergency powers to add to the list of benefits. This power was used to demand that people get vaxed and schools and churches were closed. There were the new rules requiring toilets to use less water and getting rid of incandescent light bulbs. More recently the demand that gas stoves be replaced with electric. Let's carry this out to an extreme to illustrate a point. There should be a 100% tax on gasoline to cut usage. This would move people closer to where they work. Big taxes on meat to remove the climate threat of animal gas. Big tax on all sugar products like pastries, candy and cereal for health reasons. Big tax on alcohol and tobacco products. Health insurance companies to raise rates according to body mass index. Big tax on water usage to discourage lawn watering. Have one style of shoes for men and women with different sizes to reduce the cost of shoes for poor people. Same for pants and tops. One style different sizes sort of like China under Mao where everyone dressed alike. Special heavy duty real estate tax on larger homes and limit lot sizes. Make single family homes illegal and substitute with high rise condos and town homes. All of the tax revenue to be used to build and install windmills and solar panels. This requires sacrifice from some to promote the general welfare of the masses. It goes along way toward the goal of equity.

Money

The Afghanistan War cost the US $2.3 trillion. That is $300 million dollars per day everyday for 20 years. It is impossible to find out where all this money went but using the famous Eisenhower quote of beware of the military industrial complex we can make an intelligent guess. Here is one example. The CEO of Lockheed Martin, Robert Stephens a well known defense contractor, made $2 million in the year before the war started. By 2005 his income was $3 million and in 2006 it went up to $18 million and in 2007 he got $31 million. No need to go any further because the trend is clear. In less than two years the US has spent over $100 billion in Ukraine. Does anyone know where this money is going. Are any of our elite journalist looking into this.

Argentina

Argentina's new President Javier Milei is either a very confident man or a fool. The country is facing 140% inflation. Milei is pledging economic shock therapy. His plans include shutting the central bank, ditching the peso, and slashing spending, potentially painful reforms that resonated with voters angry at the economic malaise. He won a sizable victory with 56% of the vote. Getting rid of the central bank is one way to stop the printing of money but it will take a severe austerity program to bring down inflation. He plans to clean house in government. He is an outsider, a professor of economics with no political experience. He will be going from the Ivory Tower to the real world so it is worth while to watch. When the government starts cutting spending how will the people react. Once the Peso is gone and the dollar takes its place the government can no longer print money and so they no longer need the central bank. The cut in spending must precede the decline in the inflation rate so the people will have to take the medicine before they feel the cure. There will likely be a recession with high unemployment and not much money to hand out.

News

I am pulling for independent presidential candidates Kennedy and Cornel West and hope that Manchen jumps into the fire. These are people who are not considered a big threat to the establishment so they can stir up the pot. If by some miracle they started to gain traction the hidden files in the FBI would be used to destroy them so they are safe as long as they don't represent a serious challenge. I voted for John Anderson in 1980 and Ralph Nader in 2004. I voted for Nader because MN was sowed up for Kerry and I wanted to cause trouble for the establishment. Good Americans should follow the wisdom of the founding fathers and always be skeptical of big government. This is even more important today as the free press seems allied with government instead of exposing the secrets of government. The purpose of the press is to keep the government accountable to the citizens but many have lost faith in the press which today has the lowest approval rating ever. Republicans' (5%) and independents' (12%) confidence in newspapers is the lowest on record for these party groups, while Democrats' (35%) has been lower in the past.

Cover up

There are many ways that the un-elected officials (bureaucrats) present a danger to our democracy. One of the most common is the refusal to release information based on the claim of national security. Over the past years since the inception of the FBI in 1908 and its heading by J Edgar Hoover in 1935 many examples of the misuse of power have been revealed. There is good reason to believe that this misuse is still going on to this day. If certain individuals within the system feel they know better than the voters on how the country should be run this will present a danger to democracy. The only protection against such chicanery is transparency but this is blunted by the claim of national security. It is particularly threatening when bureaucrats refuse to give information to congress whose job it is to oversea the activities of these bureaucracies. When whistle blowers reveal uncomfortable secrets the bureaucrats leap into action do discredit those involved. Since the government is divided by parties there will almost always be enough crying disinformation to interfere with the release of information. The dissenting voices will say it is just politics and in time the issue will die. Thus it is years later when the truth comes out and no one cares. One of the most famous was a secret report about the Vietnam War. The report was prepared in 1971 in the thick of the war but it was discredited by the government when some information was leaked. The government declared that this information should not be published in the name of national security. The Supreme Court ruled against the government and the press asked for the report. It was released only in small sections with much information blacked out. In 2011, forty years later, the full un-redacted report was released and no one cared. The report showed that the lies began with Truman and carried right on through with Eisenhower, Nixon and Johnson. 30 years of cover ups over the most critical aspect of government which is war.

States rights

Abortion is one of the more controversial issues facing the country and will be debated widely in the upcoming presidential election. There are several important views on how this should be resolved but the most democratic is already underway. It will be decided on a state by state basis using the vote of the people in those states. The constitution clearly states in the tenth amendment that. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This was further instilled in law when the Supreme Court prescribed this method. This will result in the old states rights argument that some people are too prejudice to decide important issues on their own and must be guided by the wiser hand of the federal government. The concept of moving power to the federal government because people are too uninformed to make wise decisions is prevalent in many areas today.

Lives

There is a public service ad on TV where it says don't hate and then different words are added like Jews, Blacks, Gays and so on. This makes sense since most people understand that hate is not a good thing. This, however, was not allowed in BLM. You could say Black Lives Matter but you could not say all lives matter even though most people understand that all lives matter.

Egg shells

In this day and age of cancel culture one group of people who must be extra careful are school teachers. They must walk on egg shells each day for fear that some comment may cause the students to walk out and thus embarrass the principal. This happen at Park High School where most of the classrooms have signs saying Black Lives Matter. One teacher made the fatal mistake of saying all lives matter and the students walked out. In the news this week a riot occurred at a high school when the students found out that one of the teachers attended a pro Israel rally over the weekend. It has now spread from inside the school to outside the school. Teachers activities away from school are now being watched and thus the egg shells are now in the non work part of their lives. There are people who do not like the phrase cancel culture so call it something else but the fact remains the effect is there.

Two State

All of the Middle East experts on TV are constantly referring to the Two State Solution wherein Palestine and Israel will each have their own country living side by side in peace. What they all seem to miss is that Hamas has explicitly stated they oppose any State of Israel. Simple stated this means that while everyone prefers a 2 State this will not be possible so long as Hamas exist. The obvious conclusion is that Hamas must be destroyed before the 2 State is possible.

Regulations

The term Deep State is controversial because it has become political. The Deep State is twofold. First and most easily recognized is the red tape needed to do anything. This is federal, state and local. It takes much too long to get things going. Former President Obama said, there is no such thing as a shovel ready job. He learned as president what Joe the plumber could have told him. As the push to move the infrastructure bill gets underway the problems with regulations will become the biggest obstacle. The bureaucrats in control of departments like commerce and EPA will determine how successful the transition to reshoring will take place. Second is the small cadre of top officials in the State Department who have become political. They are after Trump now but in time things may change and then people who are quiet now will wake up to the fact that once again bureaucrats are running the show. These people have access to secret FBI files on just about everyone and they can use that information. As long as the country is split along political lines these people can and will run the show.

Democrats

The democratic party has always has its share of coastal liberal elites but these were combined with a large group of blue collar working people so there was a kind of balance in the party. In recent years starting with Reagan the blue collar group has moved away from the democrats and the number of college educated mostly White people have moved into the democratic house. For many years the secret that democrats wanted to keep was that those in charge felt that the little guy could not take care of himself and needed the wisdom of the elites to guide and protect them, often times protecting them from themselves. It was imperative that this secret be kept for the elite did not want to seem as though they knew what was best, even though in their hearts that is exactly what they felt. This was particularly evident in the way minorities were seen, people needing the help of those who were wiser. Over the years the working class and minorities discovered that things were not really improving that much even though they were told that things were getting better. That is happening right today with Bidenomics. The elites feel that things are going well but people are just not smart enough to understand and that the big problem is in the messaging not in the policies.