Hot and wet. Or cool and wet. But certainly wet. It rained all day yesterday with varying intensity in varying places throughout the Houston metro area… and it was cooler, mid 70s for the most part. I think today will be similar, but maybe less rain.
I did my auction pickups in the afternoon. Dropped a tool by my buddy’s house. Drove all over town. Then did auction bidding in the evening. W has me on the hunt for stuff and I’m trying…
Today I’ll be monitoring the garage fridge, and dealing with that if needed. First step would be clearing a path to the third freezer and seeing if there is room in it… Next would be cooking, or looking to score another freezer… I very much hope that won’t be necessary.
——————-
Some discussion yesterday led me down a path that I think has some interest.
Why? Why have the BOL? What’s the plan, and why do I think it will work? Why will it be needed? Why make the choices I’ve made?
Well, my first rule for my prepping is that it can’t be irrevocable, or hurt my family. No moving to Idaho and going off grid to slowly starve until my kids leave. No selling everything or raiding the retirement accounts. I plan with the idea everything will continue as it is in my lifetime, while at the same time, planning for severe disruptions, both short and long term, both local and much larger. Funnily enough, both things can be true.
I plan for local or regional disasters, and for larger events with bigger impacts, and longer timelines. Hurricanes, floods, crime, civil unrest, those are disasters but are limited in scope and affect. I also plan for civil war, general world war, global pandemic, and economic collapse (probably brought about by inflation, maybe triggered or exacerbated by one of the other bad things.)
I think these things are the most likely, and we have had several since I started prepping. Got through them without too much trouble too. (I have considered stuff like an alien revelation, but I think it unlikely, and if it happens it will likely trigger all the stuff I’m prepping for anyway.) Unfortunately hard times will make all the other stuff harder too. War leads to privation, destruction, death, and disruption to the world socially and economically. Fortunately prepping for one goes a long way toward covering you for the others.
Humans have a tendency to think things will continue pretty much as they are. We evolved in a world where that was pretty true. Think of the building of the cathedrals in the west, or the ancient civilizations in the east. But. History shows that every so often, everything changes. Where are Ozymandias’ might works? Where is the Great Library? Or the Byzantine Empire? The sun never set on the British empire until it did. All roads lead to Rome… until they didn’t. And yet there are still Brits (now mostly naming their sons Mohammed) and there are still Romans in Rome.
I think we’re headed into one of those periods where everything changes. The world will look very different in 5, 10, or 20 years. I intend to do everything I can to get through this period of change and destruction and position my family to prosper during the next phase.
So I prep. I prep for the obvious local natural and man made disasters. But I also prep for the bigger, and maybe less obvious risks too. And I do that mainly by preparing to live in a resource constrained environment. There will be less of everything. Everything will be harder to do and take longer. Everything will be grosser and meaner in every meaning of those words. Safety nets will be non-existent or dramatically reduced. No one will be coming to rescue you.
I’m doing what I can to make my family independent of the systems that are failing. I’m taking responsibility for more aspects of our lives. I am hoping that my preps allow us to degrade gracefully rather than catastrophically. I’m hoping to preserve something for after, but at a minimum I’m ready to persevere.
Part of that is finding a community that I think is more resilient, more suited to living in a poorer and rougher world. It’s very difficult as an outsider to enter a community like that. They’ve been circling the wagons, us against them, for a LONG time. I’ll note that I chose a rural community. Other people will choose a more urban community, like a neighborhood, or a ghetto. There have been articles about welfare families being moved out of their projects and into the suburbs where they no longer have the community support they had. It’s a different world, and one I wouldn’t want to live in, but for the people who live there it’s home and they miss it when it’s gone.
All of prepping should be about creating options. You don’t need to rob and steal if you have food. You don’t need to risk food or waterborne illness if you have hygiene and cooking supplies. You can fit in with a crowd if you have the right clothes and the right attitudes. You don’t need to be raped or murdered if you have the tools to defend yourself. You don’t need to get on the FEMA bus. You don’t need to become a refugee.
The BOL gives me options. I can leave the metro area if it becomes necessary. I have resources stacked there if I lose access to my resources here. I have at least one friend, and several acquaintances… there are people who are happy to see me.
I’m learning as I go too, as having a BOL was entirely theoretical until we bought it. Now I’m discovering the unknown unknowns, as well as the known unknowns…
There is a LOT to learn. There is a lot to do. I’m getting older and slower, and weaker, but I’m on a mission. I’ve got plans, goals, ideas, not too many dreams, but enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life…
And it all starts with stacking.
nick
IIRC, Randall Monroe was all-in on the clot shots and other dempanic measures. IIRC he said in an interview something which I interpreted as meaning that he wants his audience to be people who believe the right things – meaning, of course, “left” things. I stopped reading XKCD years ago.
Like WhatsApp was ever really secure once it was assimilated into the Zuckerberg collective.
And I’ve beat the expired equine to death about SMS and the almost complete lack of due process protection there.
Traditional means of communication are still secure and protected by the law, but they aren’t convenient.
Mary McDonnell had quite a line in Dallas two weeks ago. People remember.
Linear TV with commercials fell apart about 15 years ago after online ate the ad revenue and the cable providers wouldn’t budge on removing the sports channels from the basic packages.
I think we’ve lost something important.
Broadcast TV will survive if the spectrum isn’t handed to Tony for one last attempt at fulfilling the Pizza Box Dream.
This time we mean it … for reals.
The MeTV Toons channel concept is brilliant … if Weigel can get the channel space nationwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrCqaDwYCnU
Leave the spectrum alone and something cool will come along to fill the void.
“Battlestar Galactica” killed “Star Trek”, making the Stage 8/9 era program style look dated.
Then the first 10 minutes of Jar Jar Abrams “Star Trek” in 2009 reminded people about why they liked Stage 8/9 era “Star Trek” and how “Battlestar Galactica” had become something you couldn’t put in front of your kids so that show’s run stopped at four seasons … just like “Enterprise”.
Watching “Enterprise” late at night on another Weigel nostalgia outlet, I think time has been very kind.
The “anonymous” employee survey results hit managers’ inboxes at work today, and someone hotdesking near me is not happy with his results.
Two of Manager X’s subordinates didnt respond to the survey, and one direct report was a little too honest.
Yeah, ”anonymous”, but not so much in practice with 15 direct reports being typical here.
I‘m guessing RSUs are at stake as the company is in the news again, goosing the stock price.
Does anybody test their websites to see if they actually work any more?
I hate, hate, hate having to call hotels to make reservations, when their websites should let me do it without having to talk to someone in India.
Fridge is cooling, everything is cold enough, but not frozen. I’ll have to explore further today. Which is moving backward and I’m coming to hate that.
—————-
gray and cool at the moment with saturated air. It’s gonna be dripping sweat time in the garage.
—————-
But there will be coffee and bacon for breakfast.
n
@Nick
I usually transfer to coolers and defrost with fans. I’ve seen ice, frozen peas, and who knows what blocking the air passage between compartments.
Very seldom is that appreciated.
I did have one boss (founder and president of a company with a few dozen employees) who said in an all-hands meeting that some of the feedback was painful to read but he needed to hear it. I don’t recall any other managers, execs, or other bosses who appreciated candid feedback about their mistakes.
– ah Lucy, there is a reason you’re unhappy in your relationships, and it’s the common element in all of them – you.
You let social media with its deadly sins poison your mind. You thought you could sleep your way thru the phone book in your 20s and still be fresh and new for a “real”relationship as you started to age out of the “potential wife” dating pool.
Never does it occur to her that both she and her lovers wouldn’t have to obsess over exes if they didn’t have so many of them.
n
That’s one approach.
Another is to not look for shinola. Most people (by which I mean most women) who go looking for shinola won’t stop until they find some, and if the shinola that they find isn’t stinky enough they’ll either dig for more or they’ll blow that little piece up until it looks like evidence of genocide and cannibalism. Oh, sure, keep your eyes open for red flags but there’s a difference between keeping your eyes open and going looking.
Sorry to be sarcy but Dwight E.’s concept of an interstate highway system to move the military envisioned a population that was DFD, not one torn by internecine disagreements and steeped in fifty years of free speech, the Anarchists Cookbooks, and a million webpages discussing Timothy McV.’s recipe for AMFO, not to mention twenty years of YouTube making things go boom.
What is DFD ?
I just got my new Birkenstocks via Brown Truck (UPS) so we are still living in the good old days. I left my 12+ year old dog chewed pair at Mom and Dads. I forgot to make a check to see if I forgot anything and sure enough, I did. That is the problem of having a BOL.
Dead F_____ Dead
That is the problem of having a BOL.
– as I am discovering, you really need a lot of duplication.
n
My freezer is full, as is my fridge …. I really should have a backup of some kind.
Does sitting mostly empty use much power? How about reliability if left unplugged?
I passed on picking up a roast chicken at CostCo this morning, because I need to eat something from an icebox & make room.
Regular gas was $4.50/gal, propane was $2.67, best deal in town.
Looked at the Pampa gold bullion over in the jewelry section … asked the attendant if they charged tax, “No Sir”. Not having $2,555 in small change I passed on it.
A can of roast peanuts, now that is a luxury I can afford.
I dated a girl once whose father tagged her best friend as “born to be a 40 year old divorcee”.
He was off by a couple of years, but that is indeed what happened.
Reading between the lines of the divorce settlement, the guy just wanted to be rid of the girl, who was about a dozen years younger than him.
The minimum tenure of Manager X’s subordinates was three years. He’s talking 2-3 changes in his group with someone.
This place takes the surveys seriously. Even the ex IBM managers I worked for at the Death Star would struggle in this environment.
My company is currently pestering us to complete the annual employee survey. It’s completely anonymous. Never mind it is being done on company computers, on company networks. Oh, and you have to enter your employee ID to fill it out. Yeah….. (in Lumbergh’s voice).
I typed “transgender suicide rates” into Brave’s search AI, and got this nugget back:
Note how the underlying cause is not the mental illness of the transgender, but all the abuse they get from haters. Right, sure. We skeptics caused the suicides.
None of this addresses the transgender murder rate, by which I mean murders committed by transgenders. I couldn’t coax Brave into finding that statistic; it got all hung up on the number of transgenders murdered, rather than murdering.
Above searches triggered by a news story of yet another transgender murdering his parents. Claimed to be “her” parents.
Trying to find a comment I thought someone had posted here but not finding it with the search. Said someone (perhaps lpdbw) had mentioned a brand/type of protein powder that they were using and am looking for that bit of info – anyone?
R.I.P. Donald Sutherland
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the only people who wore Birkenstocks were fat lesbians.
Some discussion yesterday led me down a path that I think has some interest.
Why? Why have the BOL? What’s the plan, and why do I think it will work? Why will it be needed? Why make the choices I’ve made?
Sigh. I had my reply and then I deleted it like an idiot.
This comment is in response to Aesop saying wait a minute before you move to the country. “Demographics Is Destiny”
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2024/06/demographics-is-destiny.html
and “Swamp Gas Keeps Bubbling Up”
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2024/06/swamp-gas-keeps-bubbling-up.html
Aesop’s comment is in response to John Wilder and several others saying:
“This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly. The advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.”
https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-2-0-weather-report-trump-trigger-and-complexity/
The problem is that you cannot just move out to a 100 acre farm and be safe from the MZBs (mutant zombie bikers) who will be roaming the countryside looking for loners if the rule of law breaks down. You need to find a like minded community who will join together for protection. Not easy.
I just finished my first reading of the Rick H books, “The Red Rock Redemption”. Very wonderful! I have camped and 4 wheel driven in Southern Utah like stayed overnight in Moab and driven through Blanding. I now have reasons to read more of his books.
>> R.I.P. Donald Sutherland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyeRnLnz4OM (Letterman)
Trying to find a comment I thought someone had posted here but not finding it with the search. Said someone (perhaps lpdbw) had mentioned a brand/type of protein powder that they were using and am looking for that bit of info – anyone?
Peter Grant was promoting some bone powder on his website a while back before he started having kidney problems.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-key-to-my-weight-loss-bone-broth-with.html
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the only people who wore Birkenstocks were fat lesbians.
I’m fat but I am not a lesbian.
Wait a minute, I like women so if I went trans I guess that would make me a lesbian.
But, not going trans.
Probably not me. When I use protein powder, which is very infrequently, it’s the HLTH Code brand, recommended by Dr. Eades. It’s not just whey protein, but also collagen and egg white.
I will probably try to find one that’s mainly egg protein next time. But next time will be a while; I have 2 cases of the stuff set aside.
When I bought it, I was on a liquid diet. That didn’t last long. And now, I fast one or two days a week instead of doing the protein shake meal replacements.
You need to find a like minded community who will join together for protection. Not easy.
Ways that helped me choose an area (folks may prefer the opposite indicator on any of these):
Drive around the area and see how many American flags are flying. more is better
If appropriate, how many fishing boats are on trailers or in the water? more is better
How many of the latest expensive fad vehicle are there? fewer is better
How many pickups actually look like they are used as trucks? more is better
How many roads in or out? fewer is better, and consider if other approaches are easily defended or are already defended by inhospitable wildlife and/or terrain
How many indicators of veteran status like license plates or other signs of some kind are there? higher is better
How many people are out walking their dogs or working in their yards (hired yard service doesn’t count)? higher is better
Do folks wave to you as you pass by? I tend to prefer those people. They notice who is coming and going.
You can also check the voter rolls, available on-line in many locations, to see if the political skew is to your liking. It will also tend to expose things like how many households are headed by a single female (not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s worth driving by to see if they have the obligatory “all are welcome” types of yard signs.)
If there is a Property/Home Owners’ Association, make sure you get a copy of the rules before any offer is final. I personally would run screaming if it included things like requiring board approval to change the color of your house or replace your mailbox.
Just my two cents.
Since no one can say what a woman is, how can you be sure that you aren’t one?
The freezer stopped getting cooler. The meat was still below 40F so I moved it to the fridge and other freezers. That involved moving a bunch of stuff that has piled up…
I left all the bread to thaw. I’d rather use the space for meat. Not that bread is cheap.
I moved stuff and fought the thing out of it’s cubby, and opened the back to see if the fan was working or if there was a dead rat stuck in it. No dead rat, fan spinning well. Dammit.
Compressor too hot to touch, lines room temp. I can hear a faint clicking every so often. I think the relay and starting cap are fine, the compressor is overheated or seized. I’ve got a fan on it now, with it unplugged. If it thermalled out maybe it will reset.
If not, I’m shopping for a freezer or really a fridge.
Having a bit of spare capacity is good. I have enough coolers to have put all the contents in them yesterday, but I thought it had started to cool again. It was just the freezer section cooling the fridge compartment though. And now it’s all defrosted so coolers would need ice.
I am ok with refreezing it, because I know how long it was defrosted, and I know it was at fridge temps even then. I’ll still eat it first, which sucks because it was mainly new stuff waiting for space to open up in the chest freezers.
I’ve got a call in to my auctioneer, because I just realized I never saw my chest freezer in the auctions, so I might have a 7cuft freezer sitting in a warehouse.
n
@crawdaddy, that list is a good one. We had a similar list while looking for a home in 2008.
Were there kid toys out in the yard? – good
Were there junk vehicles in the yard – bad
Were there more than 2 trucks in the driveway? – more than one household in the house, ie illegal flop house, see also 6 sh!tty cars parked everywhere?
How many visible sat tv antennas? – 4 on the balcony rail = at least 4 unrelated adults in the apartment, especially bad if they are for hispanic services not DirecTV. Double plus ungood if most of the balconies are like that.
Are the yards kept up? Are there serious fences? Bars on windows and front door? Is there trash in common areas? Litter? Gang tags?
Are people out and about? Are women walking or out alone?
Are the houses kept up or are they run down? Is it deferred maintenance or lack of caring?
Are the garages in use for cars or are they additional living space? (houses are too small or too full of people)
—-
Those are some of the general indicators we looked for, not specific to a BOL. For a BOL I wanted a nearby town that was the county seat or used to be. The place we bought is a compromise. It’s a lake house for my wife, and a BOL for me. Since TEOTWAWKI doesn’t happen often, it had to work as a lake house too. The first place we almost bought was a pure BOL even though it was on a lake.
n
Well, this is fun. I am over at https://www.healthcare.gov/ looking at moving me and my daughter over to private health insurance. My business cannot afford to pay for employee health insurance anymore starting July 1 or August 1, I have yet to decide which. Everyone in the business is pissed off at me but the business is spending more money than it makes so, we cannot conjure money out of thin air like the feddies do.
The cost for a BCBS PPO plan for me and my daughter is $1,900/month. But, but, but, we will get a $102/month federal tax credit. Huh ???
Plus I am laying off another employee. I have been telling him for a year that he needed to find another job and he has refused to look. I emailed my buddy at NASA and they are still hiring programmers so I told him to look over there. The employee has been applying elsewhere here and in Denver, CO but nothing panned out to date.
This sucks.
I guess it could have been worse, but Rafael Edward needs to get hip to the threat of Colin Zachary fairly quickly. The former football player has a sob story which will appeal to Wine Moms.
Someone needs to be fired over the misplaced documents.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-BB1oAVqf
Your employee needed to look starting a year ago. The individual I know with a degree from [The Most Expensive Engineering School In The US] and nine years experience at NI, including management, is still not working according to his LinkedIn page.
I assume he has a CS or engineering degree, but I just noticed today that the education section of the page only lists “[Fancy Lad U]. Bachelors Degree. 2012-2015”.
Directly for NASA or contracting through KBR?
Another conversation I overheard between hotdesking people today was a Subcontinent woman with an H1B telling a manager that the company was not renewing her visa.
Don’t go by the stock prices to determine the health of the industry.
Since no one can say what a woman is, how can you be sure that you aren’t one?
Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina ! ! ! (quote from the Kindergarten Cop movie)
Guess where the laid off NI refugee lives.
My former weed head partner at the Death Star moved out there about a decade ago to imbibe, and I noted he suddenly has a new job after working for Comcast for a few years.
Nobody left at the Death Star knew why he went to work for Comcast. He forced the issue with the phone company about a decade ago, taking advantage of my absence to give them an ultimatum about his moving to Colorado to “work” from home.
I’m not a big fan of the War on Drugs, but that cr*p turns people into morons.
I assume he has a CS or engineering degree, but I just noticed today that the education section of the page only lists “[Fancy Lad U]. Bachelors Degree. 2012-2015”.
Directly for NASA or contracting through KBR?
He has a degree in Chemistry with a minor in Physics from UofH. He did not listen to his Dad when he joined the Marine Corps and burned his bridges at TAMU.
Plus he is a Marine Corps veteran.
Plus he is ¼ Cherokee with a great-grandfather on the Dawes List.
Contracting through https://www.caci.com/ at JSC (John Space Center).
That’s hate speech!
So tell me more about “the best economy of our lifetimes” that I keep hearing about. (Or whatever the current talking point is.)
If memory serves, “Kindergarten Cop” was set in Astoria, Oregon and filmed on location.
That production would have been shut down immediately if the producers tried to film that line in Astoria today.
Reitman the Elder knew when to just let the cameras roll.
If he says he isn’t, then that’s definitive. No further discussion.
But Rush Limbaugh had a recurring theme about men who love women being “male lesbians”. I’ve used that line myself a few times.
I’m not a big fan of the War on Drugs, but that cr*p turns people into morons.
I HATE the War on Drugs. But I hate what drugs does to people too.
I don’t want drug paraphernalia in every city park. But I don’t want the police to have SWAT teams running all over the place like we are at war.
I am wondering how long it will be until we all are SWATted.
There are lots of schools out there besides TAMU. Strange but true.
Plus, academia in general is a lot of bullsh*t politics which change quickly.
TAMU ran off Stroustrup somehow, and I know people who lived the horror of his classes believing that guy would never get fired.
UH Clear Lake has some kind of deal for NASA employees who want to get a CS masters attending at night, no thesis required. I interviewed several at the tolling company and we even hired one over my objections.
If he’s really hungry, there is the tolling company …
If re-assignment surgery has been performed, and paid for, then you know.
What you know depends on how you view reality.
If re-assignment surgery has been performed, and paid for, then you know.
What you know depends on how you view reality.
No. If your outie was turned into an innie or your inne was turned into an outie, you are still your biological birth sex that God gave you.
A week of 100F+ is predicted for the next 7 days here, first time this year.
Summer arriving isn’t just a date on the calendar.
The concept of the “male lesbian” came from the Womens Studies department at my undergrad alma matter, Dr. Susan McAllister. Limbaugh gave proper credit whenever someone called and asked about the origin of the idea.
IIRC, he even wrote about it in one of his books.
Dr. McAllister was famous on campus for having the license plate “DYK”. According to campus legend, Florida DMV wouldn’t issue the plate with the ‘E’.
Lynn Conway died last week. She’s the reason that IBM pays for reassignment surgeries.
Or at least they did when I used to rummage their HR documentation testing the NetClient VPN software.
Imagine what kind of power IBM would have wielded and still possess if VLSI had been developed while Conway (of Conway-Mead textbook fame) had been on the IBM payroll instead of Xerox PARC.
Yeah, the tolling company is still hiring for my job.
They’re dreaming with their salary range. Austrians.
The bane of small biz. MrsAtoz laid off everybody 10 years ago. It was getting difficult to make payroll w/health. We had to borrow a lot from our LOC, pay it back, borrow, pay it back…. Today, she D3 and D5 are the only ones on payroll. Everybody else became an independent contractor and works for us when we need them.
It’s almost like there is a conspiracy to kill small biz in lieu of mega-corps.
Gotta love the guy:
HELLOOO, LAWSUIT: James O’Keefe Exposes Disney VP Saying The Company ‘Will Never Hire a White Male’
Poor Walt. They may bury Mickey right next to him very, very, soon.
All that will be left of Disney is a pod of lawyers who sue anybody who breaths IP from Disney.
Well some troubleshooting and online help and I’ve ordered a part. There is a combined start relay/overcurrent protection board and it fails. Chinese “oem quality” units are $15. The better quality one is $55, and the OEM is over $100. Since I’m throwing parts at the problem but don’t want the hassle of a 6 month lifespan, I went for the $55 version which looks exactly like the installed one.
I did pull and test the start cap, and it’s fine. $44 if not…
I let the compressor cool down, hoping there was a thermal issue but it didn’t start up.
Could be the compressor is shot, it’s 21 years old. We’ll find out at some point tomorrow.
n
I typed “transgender suicide rates” into Brave’s search AI, and got this nugget back:
Note how the underlying cause is not the mental illness of the transgender, but all the abuse they get from haters. Right, sure. We skeptics caused the suicides.
None of this addresses the transgender murder rate, by which I mean murders committed by transgenders. I couldn’t coax Brave into finding that statistic; it got all hung up on the number of transgenders murdered, rather than murdering.
Above searches triggered by a news story of yet another transgender murdering his parents. Claimed to be “her” parents.
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/utah-transgender-suspect-admits-to-killing-parents-shows-no-remorse/
Ugh.
I cannot decide if this is just normal in the 3rd largest country on Earth with 350 million people or, if we are encouraging a group of mentally unstable people to go to full crazy. I suspect it is the latter.
The Gina Carano lawsuit against Disney, funded by Musk, is going to discovery.
I have a Cara Dune “The Mandalorian” action figure which will eventually get an autograph.
“Neil Oliver: How Banks Took Over Empires, and the Truth About WWII, Brexit, & COVID”
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-neil-oliver
So we went to war in WWII to free Poland from the Nazis and then we gave Poland to Stalin.
Wait, we did what ?
I received a letter from SS today confirming my August 1 @ 9:45 AM “phone appointment”.
“Here is what we will need for you or the person for whom you are applying:
Bank statement or checkbook for the account where you would like the payments deposited.”
That’s all.
Seems pretty simple, they need the routing and account number. They already have that info, but whatever. I called. After an estimated 40 minute wait on hold that was more like an hour I talked to some female. Who didn’t sound like she was an expert and went strictly by the script. Name, SS#, my address, the usual. Plus Mom’s maiden name and (a first for me) city and state where I was born.
She went on and on about stuff I might need for my phone interview. Can she simply take my bank information? That the letter says SS needs? No, wait for your phone call.
Oh well. Toll free number like it matters anymore and I have unlimited calling on my cell phone.
The bane of small biz. MrsAtoz laid off everybody 10 years ago. It was getting difficult to make payroll w/health. We had to borrow a lot from our LOC, pay it back, borrow, pay it back…. Today, she D3 and D5 are the only ones on payroll. Everybody else became an independent contractor and works for us when we need them.
It’s almost like there is a conspiracy to kill small biz in lieu of mega-corps.
It is tough to run a business where you are constantly paying for stuff at constant time marks. Even if people just stand around, you still have to pay them until you tell them to go away.
My son claims that 80% of small businesses are in serious trouble in the USA. I hope that he is wrong because that is the recipe for disaster.
Depends on how you define “in serious trouble”. I’d believe “in trouble or at risk of being in trouble within six months”.
The disaster is already starting to occur. Slowly now, but suddenly “Real Soon Now”. Small business creation is already slowing ….. or has it stopped completely? I’ve seen many small businesses close, or close branches, or downsize.
Vanguard and BlackRock own everything now, but there are interesting exceptions.
For instance, go look at the major holders of Moderna. Ever heard of the name at the top of the list?
Things that make you say, “Hmmm….”
Depends on how you define “in serious trouble”. I’d believe “in trouble or at risk of being in trouble within six months”.
Serious trouble to me means in risk of shutting down. For instance, I am seeing restaurants shut down right, left, and sideways around here.
I am having to make changes in my main business to keep out of serious trouble. Otherwise, we would run out of cash in three months at most. I am hoping to push the serious trouble down the road a few years but, I am not sure. We signed up almost $400K in new business through March and it has been almost totally dead since then. I thought we were ok and then the new business just went away.
It’s bad and gonna get worse. Several big chain fast food companies have had to buy out their franchisees to keep from losing hundreds of stores. They’ll shut many of those though.
Lot of mom and pops are retiring as the hassle is no longer worth it.
Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of America and they are failing.
They don’t have the overhead to pay a lot of deadwood and regulatory compliance people.
n
My uncle in north Houston passed away Tuesday morning. The former Navy fighter pilot turned lawyer, my Dad’s younger brother. My aunt is burying him in the Houston National Veterans Cemetery in north Houston. The Cemetery and Church are very busy so she was not able to get a burial date until July 8. I am a little surprised at the late date but I guess that things are busy there.
I’m not a big fan of the War on Drugs, but that cr*p turns people into morons.
It’s not a war until we start killing the ground troops and work back up the line.
We know that most of the fentanyl is coming in over the southern border, and the cause of more than 100,000 U.S. deaths a year. Close the border for thirty days and explain to the Mexican government that it stays closed until they or a new government propose a viable solution.
Put our solution on the table:
Establish a 5-mile zone south of the border. Move the people out, flatten everything, and put up multiple layers of fence with anti-personnel mines starting after the second fence.
The case of the missing NYPD gear is apparently not unique
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/the_case_of_the_missing_nypd_gear_is_apparently_not_unique.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/why_are_nypd_uniforms_cruiser_decals_and_radios_going_missing_in_droves.html
Is here a difference between imposters coming to kill you and the real thing coming to kill you?
Words Mean Things: Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets VERY Creative With Definition of ‘Sidewalk’
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2024/06/20/wisconsin-supreme-court-sidewalk-n2397472
Life is cheap. Your government shows it is so.
I’ve had enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life for about 50 years now, and the list seems to keep getting longer in spite of what I’ve accomplished, or put aside.
Is here a difference between imposters coming to kill you and the real thing coming to kill you?
– don’t forget that if it’s known there are bad guys in the costume running around, then when the “good” guys make a bad mistake, they can blame the costumed bad guys.
Or is that too cynical?
n
It’s probably down to money, and selling what isn’t yours is a classic way to get some.
Vanguard and BlackRock own everything now, but there are interesting exceptions.
For instance, go look at the major holders of Moderna. Ever heard of the name at the top of the list?
Things that make you say, “Hmmm….”
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MRNA/holders/
Baillie Gifford and Company has 44.66 million shares.