Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 – Black Friday over, only a couple dead…

By on November 24th, 2018 in Random Stuff

Currently 51F and saturated.

Missed the garbage truck this morning. I usually hear them in plenty of time. Bummer.

Despite Friday of color shootings and fights, it was probably less violent than most weekends in those areas. And the cops might have shot the wrong guy in Alabama…

The malls and stores I drove past yesterday didn’t look particularly busy, and there wasn’t any traffic to speak of. Goodwill had shoppers…

An estate seller I chatted with, who might be a LMI, said their business was way down, all the antique business was hurting, and all the sellers he knows are slow. He’s made plans to bug out after riding thru the first wave of violence and looting in the collapse he thinks is coming soon. He’s adamant that the economy is actually doing very poorly, and any good news is lies.

5000 refugees and it’s a humanitarian crisis when it’s in Mexico–

Tijuana declares ‘humanitarian crisis’ and asks for help from the United Nations as 5,000 migrants from Central America descend on the border city”

Huh. Imagine that.

Stack it high my friends!

n

40 Comments and discussion on "Sat. Nov. 24, 2018 – Black Friday over, only a couple dead…"

  1. JimL says:

    39º and light rain here. I’m getting cleaned up to take the kinder to the children’s museum. It’s chilly & cold, but better than the alternatives. Actually, a little snow wouldn’t bother me right now. I’d rather be cold & dry than cold & wet.

    I don’t know how good or bad things are, but a friend of mine was just laid off by a small company that makes big things. They haven’t had an order in 18 months. Things are moving, but slowly.

    My 9-5, on the other hand, has increased orders. Durable goods and machined goods. It generally tracks rather well with the economy. We’ll see.

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    Fascinating video of how to hand make shoes. Mostly hand tools, in his home work area. An incredible amount of work. His other videos are great too.

    Shoes/boots/etc are not something everyone thinks of as preps, but they sure are.

    n

    https://youtu.be/o9KYZuqHAcI

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    Weirdness- I’m getting a ton of maritime traffic on the scanner today. Must be a bunch of commercial shipping that waited until today to leave port.

    n

  4. SteveF says:

    who might be a LMI

    Leading Market Indicator?
    Low-to-Middle Income?
    Live Male Infant?
    Lousy Muslim Indian?

    asks for help from the United Nations

    Just don’t ask for help from us. Suck it, losers.

  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    Like Minded Individual…

    n

    (I mentioned another seller who was slowly liquidating a survivalist’s stuff. They sell off a couple cases of MRE’s and some .mil web gear in every auction. He says “I’d buy that.”)

  6. SteveF says:

    Like Minded Individual

    That’s ok, I guess, and makes sense in context, but mine were funnier.

    As for the economy, I don’t know. It seems that there are some paths of great fragility and that the system would fall apart at a shock, but that’s been said for decades and there have been any number of shocks and the system is still going.

    I know that the rich and connected are manipulating the system for their own gain — I’ve seen some with my own eyes and have heard people bragging about how they made money from pulling strings. Whether it’s better or worse than in decades past, I don’t know for sure; newspapers and history books lie. I suspect it’s no worse than before, it’s just that it’s more visible than before.

    Aside from that, I’m pretty sure that the economy is better under Trump than it would have been under four more years of Obama, or of Clinton, or of any of the other candidates. We’re not in the best of all possible worlds, but we certainly dodged a lot of bullets a bit over two years ago.

    (Economic discussion is entirely US-centric. Sorry, readers in Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and elsewhere, but your economy, national sovereignty, and overall well-being are at best secondary concerns to me.)

  7. lynn says:

    Missed the garbage truck this morning. I usually hear them in plenty of time. Bummer.

    I always put my trash out the night before. That way I don’t have to worry about it.

    One of my neighbors put their Thanksgiving garbage out yesterday for our garbage run on Monday. That is uncool.

  8. lynn says:

    An estate seller I chatted with, who might be a LMI, said their business was way down, all the antique business was hurting, and all the sellers he knows are slow. He’s made plans to bug out after riding thru the first wave of violence and looting in the collapse he thinks is coming soon. He’s adamant that the economy is actually doing very poorly, and any good news is lies.

    We have closed low six figures of new business in the last two months. But, my requirement is to close low seven figures of new business each year which we have not done and probably are not going to do. My goal is to close double that. And our invoiced sales are running abut 20% less than last year.

  9. SteveF says:

    My 11-y-o daughter just went to the mall with a friend and the friend’s mother. I gave the kid $20. What are the odds I’ll get any of it back?

    (Any of it back? Pretty good odds. More than $5 back? Pretty slim odds.)

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wife was at a non-mall store that sells stuff to store your stuff. Store was empty.

    n

  11. lynn says:

    He’s made plans to bug out after riding thru the first wave of violence and looting in the collapse he thinks is coming soon.

    How does one detect that the first wave of violence and looting has started ?

    How does one detect that the first wave of violence and looting has ended ?

  12. lynn says:

    Oh man, there was so much pie and cake at my brother’s house that my wife’s two pumpkin pies were barely touched. I have been living in hog heaven, grabbing a slice here and there. Hog heaven I tell you.

  13. lynn says:

    Wife was at a non-mall store that sells stuff to store your stuff. Store was empty.

    We buy our container stuff at Sam’s Club and Walmart.

    Besides that, everyone is sitting on their lazy rumps and ordering everything off Amazon this year. They won’t go to the brick and mortar stores until desperation sets in on Dec 24.

    I was told earlier today to go to Sam’s club and buy Lady a new bed since she has peed on her bed a couple of times. Living with a geriatric dog is … not interesting.
    https://www.samsclub.com/sams/serta-round-bolcouch-xl-memory-foam-brown/prod22101803.ip?xid=plp_product_1_1

  14. lynn says:

    “Generators, Coors and canned food. How these ‘mountain boys’ are surviving in Paradise”
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article221980400.html

    “PARADISE – Brad Weldon has lived in Paradise his entire life, and wasn’t about to leave his home or his blind, 90-year-old mother behind when the Camp Fire hit.”

    ““I’m not a survivalist,” Weldon said Tuesday, “I’m a survivor.””

    Interesting and neat.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    Gay Paris!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6424117/Paris-riot-police-blast-water-cannon-demonstrators-protesting-Macrons-fuel-tax-rise.html

    One wonders what the protesters hope to achieve, what their end state is…

    n

    Lots of festive holiday bonfires.

  16. lynn says:

    Gay Paris!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6424117/Paris-riot-police-blast-water-cannon-demonstrators-protesting-Macrons-fuel-tax-rise.html

    One wonders what the protesters hope to achieve, what their end state is…

    n

    Lots of festive holiday bonfires.

    It is Paris. People like to collect there and protest. This time, they are protesting the new fuel taxes apparently.
    http://news.trust.org/item/20181124101720-ghrrs

    Just wait until we get the CO2 taxes here on gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and heating oil. The cost of living will radically rise and our mobility will be limited. Almost seems like a plan, right ?

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    Here is the antipode for shoes, and our possible future….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Japs62My-eE

    n

  18. Greg Norton says:

    Besides that, everyone is sitting on their lazy rumps and ordering everything off Amazon this year. They won’t go to the brick and mortar stores until desperation sets in on Dec 24.

    The brick and mortar alternative won’t be there for long.

    Even 15 years ago, if someone had told me that Pinellas County, FL would be down to a single K-mart in less than two decades, I would have thought them mad.

    The most desirable piece of retail real estate in the county had a K-mart dating back to the 1960s. Reading between the lines of the story, that store is now abandoned.

    https://www.tampabay.com/business/kmart-loyalists-celebrate-black-friday-on-thursday-20181122/

  19. brad says:

    Economic discussion is entirely US-centric. Sorry, readers in Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and elsewhere, but your economy, national sovereignty, and overall well-being are at best secondary concerns to me.

    Things are so intertwined anymore that it’s mostly the same thing. Whether that’s good or bad is another discussion…

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

    Yes, I agree with Brad. To many global entanglements, with everyone passing the same $20 around and each thinking they are $20 richer. When Italian banks fail, it will affect our banks because of the cross linked loans, stocks, bonds, and CDOs. Same for smaller countries.

    When the US sneezes, the world gets a cold — old school
    When [some foreign land] sneezes, the US will get sick too, how much depends on the greed of the financial guys chasing returns….

    n

  21. Greg Norton says:

    Just wait until we get the CO2 taxes here on gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and heating oil. The cost of living will radically rise and our mobility will be limited. Almost seems like a plan, right ?

    My wife’s Tesla fanatic relatives couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving because the temperatures were too cold to drive their Model X between San Francisco and Seattle, and all the long-distance vehicle haulers (Tesla’s dirty secret) were booked.

    “Plan” seems like the right word.

  22. lynn says:

    My wife’s Tesla fanatic relatives couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving because the temperatures were too cold to drive their Model X between San Francisco and Seattle, and all the long-distance vehicle haulers (Tesla’s dirty secret) were booked.

    Huh ? There are superchargers everywhere nowadays. I just got an eight portal supercharger station installed about two miles away from my house at a local Rudy’s BBQ joint.
    https://www.tesla.com/supercharger

    “1,375 Supercharger Stations with 11,414 Superchargers”

  23. Greg Norton says:

    When the US sneezes, the world gets a cold — old school
    When [some foreign land] sneezes, the US will get sick too, how much depends on the greed of the financial guys chasing returns….

    What’s this about Bank of America?

  24. Nick Flandrey says:

    US banks are on the hook for a crapton of financial stuff if the euro banks go under. They have all been lending each other money and buying each others stocks and bonds since 2008.

    Can’t find the article, but there was one laying out the impacts on the top US banks.

    n

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Huh ? There are superchargers everywhere nowadays. I just got an eight portal supercharger station installed about two miles away from my house at a local Rudy’s BBQ joint.

    Grant’s Pass to Eugene is a bit of a stretch right now at 140 miles in 40-something temps. And I wouldn’t want to depend on pulling a $100,000 car of any kind into Centralia, WA even during daylight hours much less the dead of night when the wife’s family like to travel.

  26. lynn says:

    Huh ? There are superchargers everywhere nowadays. I just got an eight portal supercharger station installed about two miles away from my house at a local Rudy’s BBQ joint.

    Grant’s Pass to Eugene is a bit of a stretch right now at 140 miles in 40-something temps.

    Well, there is always towing a trailer with a generator in it.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    “Grant’s Pass to Eugene is a bit of a stretch right now at 140 miles in 40-something temps.”

    Well, there is always towing a trailer with a generator in it.

    Pawning something like that pays for a lot of meth.

    I’m surprised there isn’t a supercharger in Medford, but I guess that’s too close to Grant’s Pass.

    The next time you watch a rerun of “Animal House”, keep in mind that the film was shot at the height of Summer in Eugene and Cottage Gove (the parade). The urban legend in Florida is that Willie Taggert never had Oregon plates during his tenure as head coach at UofO.

  28. lynn says:

    Well, there is always towing a trailer with a generator in it.

    Pawning something like that pays for a lot of meth.

    I was joking. Kinda.

    I would have thought that a Model X would have a way further range than 140 miles though. Personally, I would not buy anything with less than a 300+ mile range.

  29. Nick Flandrey says:

    Not just me…

    “”The Frenzy Of Black Friday As We Knew It Is Over“: Traffic Slumps At Stores Across America”

    Their traffic tracker is only down a percent or more but it’s down.

    n

  30. lynn says:

    “Don’t Tell Anyone, But We Just Had Two Years Of Record-Breaking Global Cooling”
    https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-global-warming-earth-cooling-media-bias/

    “Inconvenient Science: NASA data show that global temperatures dropped sharply over the past two years. Not that you’d know it, since that wasn’t deemed news. Does that make NASA a global warming denier?”

    “Writing in Real Clear Markets, Aaron Brown looked at the official NASA global temperature data and noticed something surprising. From February 2016 to February 2018, “global average temperatures dropped by 0.56 degrees Celsius.” That, he notes, is the biggest two-year drop in the past century.”
    https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/04/24/did_you_know_the_greatest_two-year_global_cooling_event_just_took_place_103243.html

    Interesting. A change of so much that the so-called climate scientists could not fake the data this time.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  31. SteveF says:

    A change of so much that the so-called climate scientists could not fake the data this time.

    Woo-hoo! Global Cooling managed to beat the margin of fraud!

  32. ech says:

    One wonders what the protesters hope to achieve, what their end state is…

    Anti government protests are one of the national sports of France.

  33. Nick Flandrey says:

    So just a bit of the old ultra violence then.

    Fires look good in the photos.

    n

  34. lynn says:

    My Texas A&M Aggies just beat the LSU Tigers by 74 to 72. Football ! Supposedly the highest scoring game in college football ever. Seven overtimes ! Five hours long !

  35. Ray Thompson says:

    Supposedly the highest scoring game in college football ever

    Nope, second highest. Abilene Christian and West Texas A&M scored 161 points in Abilene Christian’s 93-68 win in 2008. The 146 combined points are the most in an FBS game in NCAA history.

    One would question why A&M went for a two point conversion when tied instead of just kicking the extra point. For clarification after the second overtime the extra point kick is not allowed, only the two point conversion is allowed.

  36. Greg Norton says:

    One would question why A&M went for a two point conversion when tied instead of just kicking the extra point. For clarification after the second overtime the extra point kick is not allowed, only the two point conversion is allowed.

    Bowl game calculations?

    I don’t think you have to watch Jimbo’s Christmas tree this year, but fairly soon the Boosters will want nothing less than a national championship for the money they spent on his contract. A big win in a significant bowl game helps recruiting.

    I still believe A&M did the taxpayers of Florida a favor.

  37. Lynn says:

    Last nights win over LSU was worth $7.5 million of the boosters money to me. Now Jimbo has to beat LSU nine more times to justify that $7.5 million/year salary. And beating Alabama a few times would be good too.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    Last nights win over LSU was worth $7.5 million of the boosters money to me. Now Jimbo has to beat LSU nine more times to justify that $7.5 million/year salary. And beating Alabama a few times would be good too.

    Jimbo can blame the previous guy for this year. Of course, that works both ways — Willie Taggert has a mess on his hands at FSU, including the first losing season in over 30 years, due, in part, to lousy recruiting classes inherited from the previous guy.

    The wheels may be coming off the Charlie Strong career rehab hiring at my alma mater, but the administration will give him another year since the University of Texas Boosters picked up the tab for the first two seasons. Thank you, Texas.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    Last nights win over LSU was worth $7.5 million of the boosters money to me. Now Jimbo has to beat LSU nine more times to justify that $7.5 million/year salary. And beating Alabama a few times would be good too.

    Pay attention to the meltdown in Tampa with the “pro” team. Lots of careers will be on the line as well as credibility of the ownership in a few weeks, and more than a few shoes will drop concerning Jameis Winston’s college years — who knew what, when, etc.

  40. ech says:

    Old story about football in college.

    A new coach is brought in to a program and in setting up his desk, he finds 3 envelopes in it, with handwriting from the previous coach. They say “First Crisis”, “Second Crisis”, and “Third Crisis”.

    After a mediocre season with no improvement, he is under fire. He remembers the envelopes and opens the first. “Blame me.” So, he does the “I need to get a better fit of players and systems from what was here” dance.

    A couple of seasons go by and it’s not much better and he is under fire. He opens the second envelope: “Blame yourself.” He changes some coordinators and tells the press and alumni that he “has to do a better job”.

    Still things are no better after the next season and the pressure and critics are worse. He opens the third envelope: “Prepare three envelopes.”

Comments are closed.