63F and raining. Rain gauge says 1.11 inches since midnight. Yesterday stayed overcast until mid-afternoon, when it poured for a short while.
Some of my planning for today will have to shift… can’t do it in the rain.
There’s a saying about what wipes you out, bankrupts your company, ends you civilization. It’s not what you know, it’s what you don’t know that will get you. This was not on my planning horizon. I don’t think this ends well.
Maybe an EMP is the best defense we have!!??!
n
52º and clear with a little wind in the city by the bay. I expect some clouds, but generally nice weather today.
With the 3-day weekend, I plan to do some work on the lawn tractor – needs 4 tires mounted and some wiring. Nothing I shouldn’t be able to handle. The kids will help, too. Nobody will be allowed to sit inside all day this weekend, even if it’s raining. Get outside and play!
Yikes, that was some weird thunder. More like cannon fire than normal rolling thunder….
still steady raining.
n
This is a bit bleak but sums up a certain point of view quite succinctly, and make a few points I think are right on… I’m not using the block quote because it’s a bit long and that makes it annoying to read.
— begin quote
The Saker: Lastly, a similar but fundamentally different question: can the US (as opposed to the Empire) survive Trump and, if so, how? Will there be a civil war? A military coup? Insurrection? Strikes? A US version of the Yellow Vests?
Dmitry Orlov: The US, as some set of institutions that serves the interests of some dwindling number of people, is likely to continue functioning for quite some time. The question is: who is going to be included and who isn’t? There is little doubt that retirees, as a category, have nothing to look forward to from the US: their retirements, whether public or private, have already been spent. There is little doubt that young people, who have already been bled dry by poor job prospects and ridiculous student loans, have nothing to look forward to either.
But, as I’ve said before, the US isn’t so much a country as a country club. Membership has its privileges, and members don’t care at all what life is like for those who are in the country but aren’t members of the club. The recent initiatives to let everyone in and to let non-citizens vote amply demonstrates that US citizenship, by itself, counts for absolutely nothing. The only birthright of a US citizen is to live as a bum on the street, surrounded by other bums, many of them foreigners from what Trump has termed “shithole countries.”
It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state. And once the fracking bubble is over and another third of the population finds that it can no longer afford to drive, that might force through some sort of reset as well. But then the entire system of militarized police is designed to crush any sort of rebellion, and most people know that. Given the choice between certain death and just sitting on the sidewalk doing drugs, most people will choose the latter.
And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters; concerned citizens demanding that migrants be allowed in, then calling the cops as soon as these migrants set up tents on their front lawn or ring their doorbell and ask to use the bathroom; well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well.
At this rate, when the end of the US finally arrives, most of the people won’t be in a position to notice while the rest won’t be capable of absorbing that sort of upsetting information and will choose to ignore it. Everybody wants to know how the story ends, but that sort of information probably isn’t good for anyone’s sanity. The mental climate in the US is already sick enough; why should we want to make it even sicker?
–end quote
emph. added
n
Jeeeze, what an optimist.
Just to add a little fuel to the pessimism fire – abortion on demand leads to:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6936303/There-23-1-MILLION-missing-female-births-world-1970.html
Who says abortion is a GOOD thing? What are 23 million young men with NO HOPE OF A MATE going to do?
“What are 23 million young men with NO HOPE OF A MATE going to do? ”
–die fighting in a pointless war… that’s the traditional way to reduce a surplus of young males.
n
(and islam lets you have multiple wives, reducing the pool even more.)
There is little doubt that retirees, as a category, have nothing to look forward to from the US: their retirements, whether public or private, have already been spent.
Oh, please. Public pensions have priority even in Detroit’s bankruptcy.
And, as I’ve stated before, Social Security is already insolvent, but my generation doesn’t want their pre-Boomer “I, Tonya” mothers moving in with us. IIRC, about 1/4 of the states have dusty statutes requiring children to ensure the well beling of the parents.
Fortunately, we don’t speak with my mother, and my rule about taking in my mother-in-law without leaving her at the mercy of Florida Medicaid is that my name goes on the title of her house.
(Sorry, folks, but there is a lot of history I can’t summarize quickly, and if I wasn’t that upfront/ugly, my Chinese in-laws would steal us blind.)
“Oh, please. Public pensions have priority even in Detroit’s bankruptcy.”
-so where will the money come from? Detroit is a ghost town compared to what it was.
Illinois is broke, busted, defunct. Who will loan them the money for their pensions?
at some point, they will need to either pay some fraction of the pensions, or cut out the rest of services. How long will people pay taxes if they aren’t getting services?
n
Illinois is broke, busted, defunct. Who will loan them the money for their pensions?
The Feds. If I had to guess, the bankrupt states are counting on Trump being one term. And people still live in Illinois.
I had to laugh every time we crossed the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago last month — the picture postcard view looking west from the bridge has “TRUMP” right smack in the middle.
That addition to the skyline must irritate more than a few, especially since the bridge is the main walking route between the end of the METRA line from Hyde Park (Obama’s neighborhood) and the “miracle mile” shopping.
The docent on our summer river cruise/architectural tour wouldn’t even mention the Trump building, despite it being huge, famous, and had architectural and design details she highlighted on other buildings.
Come to learn about the architecture, stay to learn about your docent’s political beliefs.
n
(quite a few of the bridges we passed under looked like old lace they were so eaten away by rust.)
So I just had to look. It looks a lot like a middle finger to me. Could just be me being snarky.
So I just had to look. It looks a lot like a middle finger to me. Could just be me being snarky.
In Texas, we have the San Jacinto “Middle Finger To Mexico” Monument. Go look at pics of that one sometime.
(quite a few of the bridges we passed under looked like old lace they were so eaten away by rust.)
Welcome to Chicago. As i wrote previously, the Hyde Park/UofC train station doesn’t have ticket agents anymore, and the ticket vending machines were all broken on the day we visited the science museum.
BTW, contrary to popular belief, bridges outside of the Interstate system are not a Federal Government problem.
Once, in the 80s, when Reagan needed something passed, he cut a deal where Federal money got spent on road/bridge work which was normally the domain of local and state governments. The unions have been constantly looking for new “infrastructure” deals ever since.
“Ransomware: How to Prevent Being Attacked and Recover After an Attack”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/complete-guide-ransomware/
I hope that I never get any of this on me.
I hope that I never get any of this on me.
The intern’s Linux laptop from last summer should still be around the office somewhere.
I don’t travel with Windows anymore, but the Linux-only laptop, an old Dell E6400, eats batteries at a rate that I cannot justify at $60 per year.
How would the stock market be doing well in that gloomy scenario? It makes no sense. Business can’t grow if nobody can buy, and markets don’t go up when sales decline.
Social Security can still pay 70% of what is promised. States have problems, that they will have to solve. People are finally going to learn that it doesn’t matter what some judge says when they make impossible demands.
I’ll stay vigilant, keep working as long as I can, diversify, buy more food and ammo, and keep on keeping on.
I’m not bugging out to any supposed third world sanctuary, or offing myself.
IIRC, about 1/4 of the states have dusty statutes requiring children to ensure the well beling of the parents.
Yeah, good luck with that here. Mom’s at a nursing home, they get all of her money from SS and her share of Dad’s retirement, minus $60 for things like haircuts and clothes. It takes two nurses/orderlies/aides to get her out of her wheelchair and onto the potty.
Social Security can still pay 70% of what is promised. States have problems, that they will have to solve. People are finally going to learn that it doesn’t matter what some judge says when they make impossible demands.
When the feddies have their financial apocalypse, who knows what bills that they will pay ? And if there is massive unemployment, not as much social security tax will be paid. Social security is a Ponzei scheme that is approaching its peak payout period.
Yeah, the idea of bugging out to some third world sh!thole has no appeal. NZ took themselves off the list with their gun ban, and AU isn’t really interested in more foreigners either.
I really don’t understand why you’d want to become an expat in some sh!tty socialist country where they will murder you first sign of trouble….
n
I really don’t understand why you’d want to become an expat in some sh!tty socialist country where they will murder you first sign of trouble….
Belize used to be (maybe still) highly sold for expats to set up. Crime has really gone up, and, it *is* connected to Mexico.
None of these places has a Constitution like ours, not even Oz. I hope we don’t have CWII while I’m still living, or my kids, or…ever. I hope tRump gets re-elected and a bunch of ProgLibTurds stroke out.
When the feddies have their financial apocalypse, who knows what bills that they will pay ? And if there is massive unemployment, not as much social security tax will be paid. Social security is a Ponzei scheme that is approaching its peak payout period.
Social Security is not required by law to make any payouts, only collect. However, the trust fund holds Treasuries, and the AAA credit rating of the country depends on every one of those being redeemed on time.
None of these places has a Constitution like ours, not even Oz.
I gather that our freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, and right to arms is quite missing among the nightmares out there. Oh yeah, and the right to not have to incriminate yourself.
I’ll tell you from personal experience, the biggest one is the presumption of innocence. When you are accused in some foreign sh!thole (Canadia I’m looking at you) you really appreciate the legal presumption of innocence in a VERY visceral way. They really don’t get it that you can be arrested without being guilty of anything, or how often US citizens get arrested (esp. in their youth.)
Our forefathers were incredibly prescient and generous when they established the presumption of innocence.
n
Well, the rain stopped and sun came out, so I got to load another pickup full of auction items. This is 3 trips so far, and you can’t even really tell. I can tell, but I know what to look for.
Kids and wife home tomorrow. Don’t know how much work I’ll get done, but I’m going to try.
n
I expect the US government will always pay all of its bills. Seriously, that’s not a problem when you own the printing presses. They can inflate their way out of any fiscal problem. The effect on the citizenry will be unfortunate, of course…
According to shadow-stats, the effort is already well underway, with inflation being deliberately understated for a couple of decades now.
I expect the US government will always pay all of its bills. Seriously, that’s not a problem when you own the printing presses. They can inflate their way out of any fiscal problem. The effect on the citizenry will be unfortunate, of course…
I lived through the 1970s that finished off at 21% interest rates. It was devastating to small businesses. Big ones too.
This is why I refinanced my commercial property with a fixed 15 year interest rate. High interest rates are coming.
According to shadow-stats, the effort is already well underway, with inflation being deliberately understated for a couple of decades now.
Energy, the most important portion of the mix of consumer and commercial items, has not increased in price in well over a decade. Food has gone up in price though but is still cheap relative to 100 years ago.
I forgot to mention that we got 1.5 inches of rain early this morning along with hail and very strong winds. We did not have power at our house from 430 am to 730 am which prompted our stupid alarm system to start going nuts. The alarm console in our bedroom was beeping every minute or so.
Some day I am going to find the power source for the alarm system and kill it. I have yet to set off that 135 db alarm but I am sure that it will happen around 4 am in the morning.
We have many trees down in Fort Bend County and the power guys were running all over the place all day fixing downed lines and blown fuses. I drove by one house this afternoon with about 50 trees in the front yard (1.2 acres). About 20 of the trees are uprooted. I wonder if they got some tornadic action there.
Interesting
some thoughts
a) Forget your pensions, as the gvnt has the printing press, the only income is the income you could build, the rest are taxes, we were there 40 years ago
b) Forget stopping inmigration, the romans also tried, remember AD 406? this is, we have now (healthcare is free here, good? it depends compared against what, but better than our neighbours)
c) Shithole countries? you already are there, have you been in Detroit lately? Baltimore?
d) Thnaks Lynn, i was in doubt to press my daughter to buy inow!
best regards
Re: Illinois
The way the constitution is set up in Il, the pensions have first claim on government revenues. They will end up slashing state services. Also, they can’t go bankrupt under US law, as states are sovereign.
Laws can be
brokenI mean changed.