Archives for October 2018

Day 638 Tuesday October 16, 2018    943 Days to Go

We returned this morning from a debate between the two people running for Congress in our district, the Virginia 7^th. It’s an hour and a half to that end of the district, which says a lot about gerrymandering. This district is famous for the Tea Party shouting down Eric Canter and then having Canter lose to an upstart named Dave Brat. Brat went on to team up with John Jordan as part of the Freedom Caucus, which opposed everything and got John Boehner to give up on being Speaker of the House. This ushered in Whiz-kid, Paul Ryan, who you may remember introduced a budget that had no numbers in it other than page numbers and was filled with wishful thinking and Republican platitudes. Obama went to visit the Republicans in Baltimore opened up this budget to a random page and read what it said. He stopped and said, “You can’t govern based on this.” 

After the Tea Party folks shouted down Canter they got back on their fancy bus motor coaches and left the district. Who exactly paid for those buses I have never found out. I also don’t know if those “protestors” got paid, but suffice it to say Dave Brat has always been worried about “paid protestors” and protestors in general. That is why he doesn’t publish his schedule. It also why he’s never held a town hall. Oh, he’s had events he called town halls, but to me a town hall is where voters get to ask their representatives questions. He’s never done that.

I should know I’ve been to everyone of them. All two. In both you got to write questions on 3”x5” cards and a moderator got to read what they wanted. He also did this via his highly unpublished facebook town halls. By not taking questions directly from the audience he can’t be challenged on his outright lies. 

Things like pre-existing conditions which he says somehow he’s for. If by that he means he’s for giving you a pittance and you can fend for yourself then okay he’s for pre-existing conditions, like most people are for getting unnecessary root canals, but otherwise it’s not true. It’s a lie. 

The most repeated line in the debate was Brat mentioning Nancy Pelosi. If her name had been the key to a drinking game you would have been under the table after 15 minutes. It got to be so silly that the crowd started to finish the line like a greek chorus. Someone put out a Brat bingo card and it had Pelosi in every square. Olde Dave kept repeating the phrase “the failed policies of Nancy Pelosi.” He also kept touting how the economy had been in desperate straights until 2016 when from Day 1 they had turned the whole situation around. This is a pretty stunning statement when you compare it to the a chart of GDP growth for the U.S. economy. W handed Obama an economy in the dumper. It was under his leadership and the work of Nancy Pelosi in the House that turned the economy around and it’s been uphill ever since. 

Nancy Pelosi was recently reviewed in Time magazine and was called the most effective House leader in modern times. Why? Because every piece of major legislation she introduced passed. Compare that to John Boehner and Paul Rayan. The only thing that got passed under them was a huge tax break for the super rich (and a few pennies for everyone else.) 

Spanberger pointed out that Brat and the Republicans passed a tax bill that added $1,900,000,000,000.00 to the national debt. Brat said it revived the economy and gave money to working people. This was an interesting slight of hand on his part. He said that the money went to capital appreciation and then to the workers. How adding more money to the coffers of a company, and that is what the capital appreciation account is, does not translate to workers getting any money. Brat pointed out that one company gave all their workers a $3,000.00 one time bonus. Wow. Nice. 

The number of companies that gave bonuses was fifty, 50, five zero.

The number of businesses in the U.S. is eleven million; 11,000,000; one one zero zero zero zero zero zero.

And it’s a one time shot, not like the businesses that got a permanent tax cut.

Imagine if instead Congress had increased the minimum wage?

Let’s do a little fun with math.

Let’s compare the great things Dave Brat and the Republicans did

versus

The poor pathetic failing liberal policies of Nancy Pelosi

 

Let’s compare what Brat said the Republicans did for workers versus what some socialist far left leaning Democrats propose. Or to put it another way: What the hard right Freedom Caucus Republicans did versus what the moderate centrist Democrats proposed, which was to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.

Here is a list of the companies  in the S&P 500 that announced they were going to do something to help their workers based on the Tax Cuts the Republicans put through:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/26/us-companies-that-have-announced-bonuses-investments-after-tax-cut.html

I count 50 companies. Let’s assume that they all give their workers $3,000 as Dave suggested one company did.

Let’s assume that the average number of employees in an S&P company is 2500. It’s not. Actually, it’s 24 full and part time, but let’s go with 2500.

ref: https://www.macroaxis.com/invest/ratio/%5EGSPC–Number-of-Employees

If the 50 companies gave $3,000 to 2,500 employees each that would be:

50 x 2500 x $3000 = $375,000,000

Wow. Three hundred and seventy five million! That’s nothing to sneeze at. Am I right?

Okay, let’s look at the Dem’s idea of raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.

The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Let’s assume every worker in America is making the minimum wage. A few make more, I know.

So the Dem’s would give everyone an extra $7.75 an hour ($15.00 – $7.25 = $7.75).

How many people are working in the U.S.A.?

154,340,000

How long do they work on average per week?

34.4 hours

So let’s do the math:

$7.75 x 154,340,000 = $1,188,385,000 per hour

times 34.4 hr/wk       = $5,274,896,000 per week

times 50 weeks         = $263,744,800,000 per year 

That’s 

three hundred and seventy five million versus

two hundred and sixty three billion seven hundred and forty four million eight hundred thousand.

Hum, which proposal would do more to help the economy?

How would those poor corporations be able to pay for all those increased wages?

And what about all the people thrown out of work because the struggling companies “would have to let a few people go”?

(Remember the CEO of Wal Mart, who talked about the “family” you are in when you work for Wal Mart? Yeah, when asked what would happen if they had to pay everyone an extra buck he said the company would go under? Remember kindly old Sam Walton? He was forced by the government to pay overtime, which he did, but not before telling anyone who cashed that overtime check would be fired? Nice family values.)

How in the world are they going to pay that enormous $263 Billion?

Well, Dave Brat told us how. The Capital Appreciation Account of those companies. In other words, the cash on hand. How much cash do U.S. companies have? According to the Wall Street Journal last year they had $2.4 Trillion sitting around. That’s before the “repatriation” of money from overseas.

That’s $2,400,000,000.00.

How many times does $263 Billion go into $2.4 Trillion? Answer 9.12. That’s over nine years worth of cash on hand.

But then there’s the repatriated money. The money stashed overseas to avoid paying taxes. (If we did that kind of thing we’d be in jail, but hey that’s a different story.)

Money overseas is $3.4 Trillion. Why that’s another 12.927 years. Lemme throw that in with the 9.12 and we have 22 years worth of cash to pay the extra minimum wage salaries of $15.00 per hour.

Most of the Tax Cut that the Republicans passed went to the very rich and the very very rich. Do you think they are spending more money? Maybe a little, but it’s a poor place to invest if you want to rev up an economy.

If you put money in hands of people who are starving they will spend it immediately to get food. That in turn creates demand for more food and for people to grow more food, stock grocery shelves, deliver the food, etc. Money invested in the right places in an economy can have a “multiplier effect” on an economy. In other words, a dollar given to a person on welfare that needs more food can translate to maybe five dollars in down stream benefits for the economy. Naturally, this would increase tax revenues too.

You would think a guy like Dave Brat, who claims to be an economist, would understand this, but when I’ve heard him talk (mainly via man-‘splainig the economy) he doesn’t seem to understand, or care about this point. It’s not a really fine esoteric economic point. It’s basic. 

So you have a choice. Let the Republicans cut taxes on people with money who aren’t paying their fair share, give companies a way to bring money back into the U.S. that they didn’t pay taxes on (and will pay a little) and then give a pittance to a few workers or give everyone a raise and increase the economy across the board.

 943 Days to Go

PS Some of as Dave Brat would call them “The unruly mob of left wing political agitators” waiting to get their hands on him and tear him apart.

      

Day 637 Monday October 15, 2018    944 Days to Go

Let me be clear, I write these screeds for me.

It’s my way of dealing with the tragedy that has befallen our country and the world.

Some people disagree with what I write. This takes different forms, which I will get to in a moment. When someone disagrees I ask them for their opinion and supporting facts. Rarely do I get any facts, or any supporting evidence. I support my claims with evidence. I try to connect the dots. I do have harsh criticism for those in public office who are lying or hypocritical. I point out my reasoning and the history. Some people take exception to what I write. I ask them for their evidence. I ask them not to call me, my friends, or others names. Rarely, do I get anything but more name calling, more insults, more hyperbolic statements. Real facts, real evidence – no. Occasionally, I’ll be pointed to some web site that is pushing a conspiracy theory, or is fascinated with some minor, mostly irrelevant point. But that’s it.

I think it important to look at the big picture, at what is going on, at how history has shown similar events in the past and draw conclusions from those sources, and look for a way forward, to look for solutions to problems we are facing.

Let start with the idea that we want to solve problems, problems that are facing all of us. Can we agree on those problems? Here in lies the first problem. We can’t seem to agree on the problems facing us.

Let me list a few possible candidates:

Climate change,

Gun violence (and I’ll expand that to violence in general),

Drugs,

The economy,

voting rights,

women’s rights (and I’ll include abortion in here),

freedom of and from religion,

free and fair elections.

If I think of the people who typically disagree with me I don’t think we can even agree that many of the above issues are problems. Certainly, the possible solutions are wildly divergent.

I provide evidence to say the above things are problems and I am told I don’t understand, that I am wrong, or that I am proposing “out there” ideas. If I ask for their ideas, their evidence, I get by-and-large nothing. By that I mean, other than name calling or a link to a website that a quick Google search reveals it to be a right wing web site with a specific agenda, I get nothing that can be discussed.

Let me quickly go down the list:

Climate Change – what ya got that says it ain’t real? (I got Hurricane Michael and Florence, the melting ice cap and wildfires in California for starters. Plus we’ve had the warmest years on record every year for what? the past ten years?)

Gun violence – Everyday there’s another shooting. What else do you need to know? Every other country in the world has come up with a solution. I think we can to. Okay, that makes me an optimist. What do you have?

Drugs – The opioid crisis, brought to you by drug gangs and big pharma. Violence and lies. Can something be done? I think so. How about you?

The economy – Republicans spend more than Democrats. I’m for spending less, and I’m for spending it in places that help people, not a few people, not a few companies. I say a rising tide lifts all boats. Let’s do things that help us all have better lives. Don’t talk to me about socialism or twiddling with the monetary supply or interest rates; talk to me about how what you are proposing helps people.

Voting Rights – Everyone has a right to vote. Those who oppose that are unpatriotic. I call them Republicans (Joke! There are a few Republicans who actually believe that everyone should be allowed to vote. Most of them are dead.) The list of voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering by Republicans are legion. Yeah, I’ve heard “the Dems do it too” argument. But when you look at the way the districts are drawn in most states today there is no way you can conclude anything but cheating and rigging of the system. Hundreds of thousands of people were not allowed to vote in the last election due to “Operation Crosscheck” and in this election in Georgia alone 53,000 are being prevented by “Exact Match.” While the evidence, the evidence, of what these systems claim to be doing – preventing voter fraud – is a lie, because there is virtually no voter fraud. There might be now with hackers getting into the voting systems, but there aren’t voters fraudulently voting.

Women’s Rights – Here is the largest hypocrisy. Women are asking to be left alone to decide for themselves how to live their lives and to be treated the same as a man when it comes to the workplace. This is a big problem for men and for people who read the bible and for people who crow about “freedom.” Seems we can have freedom everywhere but here. We need to stop women from conducting their own affairs. We need to preach to them, to thump the holy book, to lie to them, to stop them from doing what they think is best. Why? Because we know better! Hey, I got news for you all that say that stuff. You don’t.

When it comes to the pro-life movement. Each one of those people who says they are pro-life has a choice to back either you kill the woman who is living or allow the woman to stop what is going on in her own body. If you say she doesn’t have the right to stop what is going on in her body then you are saying you prefer that the woman dies. It’s that simple. I call the pro-life movement the pro-death movement because they have chosen to let a woman die for their self righteous beliefs. 

As far as women getting paid the same as men. It will happen, when women are in charge.

Freedom of religion and freedom from religion – You can go and pray to any god or belief you want. But when you try to use that belief or god to justify how I should live my life, we got a problem.

Free and Fair Elections – One party is for them; one is not. One party embraces all voters; one does not. One party looks to improve conditions; one party lives in fear that someone will take something from them. Your choice which party you want to embrace. Or you can cop out and vote for Jill Stein or the latest Libertarian or Green Party or whatever.

Our electoral system has problems. Getting rid of the Electoral collage altogether would allow for the person with the most votes to win. However, it could usher in many candidates getting small percentages of the vote, or as happened in Maine two centrist candidate split the vote for Governor and a crack pot won more and got elected. Until that kind of problem is solved ( and there are some ways to do it, possibly, which I’d be glad to discuss later – at length) we are stuck with our current system. A possible solution would be to have the electoral votes of a state go to the candidate who won the popular vote. That would mean Trump and W would never have won an election and four of the nine Supreme Court justices would not be sitting on the bench today. You the ones who voted for allowing dark money into politics and who have voted against the will of the people repeatedly.

I welcome those who make snide comments about what I write, or about me, my friends, the politicians I favor, or the ideas I espouse to try and say something factual, positive, and helpful. 

Hint: Calling me “out there” or someone you don’t know a lesbian, or repeatedly saying “Can’t wait for Trumps second term”, or MAGA! ain’t doing any of the things I am encouraging you to do. Oh, and telling me “I don’t understand” or pointing to the anti-fa movement or some bizarre behavior in a minor incident in a small time college several years ago ain’t cutting it either.

And before you send me a link to a website no one has ever heard of why don’t you save me the trouble and google it first? If it comes back as labelled “alt-right”, or “Christian”, or has financial backing of names Koch, Mercer, etc. Save your breath (fingers typing?) because they all have a specific agenda and it’s not to help people.

Moving on. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made it clear that if anyone tries to punish them for interrogating, torturing, murdering, and sawing up a journalist there will be retribution. I don’t know what? Maybe you’ll be interrogated, tortured, murdered, and sawed up? So I guess we better not say anything, huh? And there’s that money! The one hundred and ten billion dollars! Can’t let that slip through our fingers!

Let’s just be quiet. Maybe it will all go away? 

Isn’t there a Bible saying about reaping the whirlwind? Do you think all of Trump’s pals are watching? Kim in North Korea? Duerte in the Philippines? Xi in China?

Hey guys, No problem. We are open for business. Buy some arms, stay in my hotel. Give lovely Ivanka an exclusive deal, take out a loan on Jared’s family properties and we’re good. 

This is America! This is what we’ve become. Aren’t you proud? 

Stand up for what you believe in.

944 Days to Go

PS The Ossuary, Chichen Itza, Mexico.

 

  

Day 636 Sunday October 14, 2018     945 Days to Go

How did we get here?

It’s a good question. Especially, in times like this. Trump continues to shock and we continue not to be shocked.

I find myself asking, “Remember when?”

Remember when we used to solve problems?

Remember when we worked together?

Remember when we agreed on the facts, but might have disagreed on the solution?

I also remember that these strains of deceit, hatred, and bigotry were always with us, but there was an appeal to our better selves, to our goodness, to our rising above the din and drum. There was a sense of taking responsibility for others, for reaching out and helping. 

There was a time when we believed in hard work and that by so doing we would be rewarded. Now, it’s more about scheming, or cheating and not getting caught, and if you do get caught denying it. 

When did this all start? I’d wager that it’s always been there, but now it’s louder than ever. However, there have been some fundamental changes. One of them has been the ever presence of media. There have always been kooks, but now they’ve found a way to center stage. A moment in time was Newt Gingrich’s rise. CSPAN had a camera running on the floor of the House. Gingrich got in front of that camera and said outrageous things to an empty chamber. It was not heard except over the airwaves and from time to time it got replayed. His outrageousness earned him a name and finally the Republicans took over the House and Gingrich became Speaker. His idea? Well, not his, but the one he parroted was to not compromise, to not find common ground, but to oppose and push through some of the radical ideas he had been repeating. A common theme was to shrink government so that it would eventually disappear or be a shadow of itself. Whether he or, Ron Paul or his son Ran really believe this would happen is a matter of debate, but the intent of powerful, and by that I mean “rich,” forces was to shrink the federal government and move power to the states so that these rich interests could more easily manipulate the local state governments. The only use these people had of the Federal government was to keep a military force to prevent the country from being invaded and to use that force to be able to seize assets around the world, and in rare cases suppress local uprisings, that is if the local militias weren’t able to do it.

Reagan had tried this tactic and found the flaw in it. His econ/budget guy David Stockman – the conservative whiz-kid of the time pushed the idea of tax cuts and spending cuts. He got the tax cuts. Everyone liked that. But when it came to the spending cuts? Not so much. Therein lay the fallacy. Yes, people want stuff, but they don’t want to pay for it. California learned that lesson with a proposition that cut taxes on property owners. It was big news when it passed. It decimated the California higher education system, which up until that point had been one of the finest in the world. It went on to ruin California for decades. 

When they couldn’t get the cuts in social programs they wanted they took a different tactic. One we are seeing play out right now. Spend so much that the government will have no choice but to cut back. It’s a deeply cynical approach to governance. But when it comes to being cynical, snide, and hypocritical Newt and the Republicans have no shame or sense of decency. It was Newt who told one wife dying of cancer that he was divorcing her to marry his mistress. Didn’t Rudy do a similar thing? Then there is the Donald who not only kept trading for younger women but had affairs on the side. Let’s not forget the group of Republican Congressmen living in a townhouse in Washington D.C. owned by a “church” that used it as a place to bring their lovers while their wives were back home. All this went on while they railed against the Democrats for their unseemly behavior. So what if they had to go back to a defunct land deal? So what if it was the wife of a guy who had six blow jobs with an intern? 

You can bet that when the Democrats again take the White House these self same Republicans will be whining about the huge deficit. The one they created. On purpose.

 

I remember watching the U.N. Security Council meeting when our Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick played the audio recording to the audio intercept of the Soviet pilot before he shot down Korean airliner 007. The Soviets had denied and denied they had anything to do with shooting down that plane that had accidentally wandered into their air space. We even had the pilot being told to hurry up and do it before the plane left their territory. I remember how Kirkpatrick sat there as the tape played.

Do you think we’ll hear Khashoggi being killed and sawed up? 

Do you think our president or his son-in-law will take a stand for decency? For what we as a country have at least believed we stood for?

Fuck no.

This was brought about because of Trump’s allowing violence to be a hallmark of his presidency. Of his allowing people whom he disagreed with to be beaten up at his rallies. At his calling the press the enemy. Of his close palling around with dictators and henchmen around the world. Of his son-in-law’s close personal relationship with the ruling crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who for his chumminess got money to bail out his real estate businesses. Hey, the Saudis spent a lot of money at Donald’s hotels, bailing them out of having losses, aren’t they entitled to something? Fuck America. Go Donald! You the man!

Disgusting.

I fear the worldwide purge has begun.

945 Days to Go

PS Butterfly!

Day 635 Saturday October 13, 2018    946 Days to Go

Do you remember when Donald Trump asked people to vote for him because he asked, “What have you got to lose?”

We now have the answer.

Our dignity, our sovereignty, our standing in the world, in short – everything.

It is said that Jamal Khashoggi suspected something was up before he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He therefore linked his Apple Watch to his iPhone and left his phone with his fiance who stood outside the consulate. She no doubt got to hear him being tortured, killed, and then no doubt heard the sound of the saw as they cut him up.

What did our president do? He said we don’t have all the facts and it was a terrible thing, but he didn’t want to stop a deal worth one hundred and ten billion dollars. 

Put aside there is no deal worth that and that what was negotiated was done by Obama and W, not Trump, and they weren’t signed deals but MOIs (Memorandums of Intent). 

A former State Department aid said of Trump that he is the worst negotiator in the world, because he gives away whatever the main objective is before he sits down at the table.

Others say that “He’s a transactional president.” I was never sure what that meant but now I know.

He does it for money. 

What? Everything.

And it’s money for him.

Not for the government, not for the people, it’s for himself.

Given that he’s such a terrible negotiator we now know that he was willing to allow a U.S. resident to be killed for the money. How much? He thinks $110 billion. In reality there is no money. Even Judas got his shekels.

So there you have it boys and girls, be it known that your president will sell you out for the right price.

Hell, he’ll give you away.

Meanwhile, in the race for Governor of Georgia we have two contestants. One is the Secretary of State whose job it is to oversee the election. Normally, if you are running in an election you would recuse yourself from overseeing the election, but not this dude. Oh no, why should he? I mean what could go wrong? Well, let’s see. He was warned by Homeland Security and the FBI that his voting machines were susceptible to tampering in 2016. That’s not exactly true. They were wide open, as one person discovered when casually looking up information about themselves. Not only the voting information but people’s social security information – everything. His name is Brian Kemp and he’s developed quite a rep. His state was the only state that refused any help because he didn’t want the Federal government telling him what to do. Besides he said it was unlikely that anyone was really hacking into his system, which is all centrally controlled with no paper backup. 

The Mueller investigation identified the Russian hacker by name, time and place who was hacking into the Georgia voting system. Did they create any mischief? I dunno. I mean one little county had a 253% greater votes cast than voters registered. Maybe it was the Russians, maybe not. Who knows? What did Mr. Kemp do? He had all the servers with all the votes wiped clean. 

But that’s just the beginning of Mr. Kemp’s fabulous time as Secretary of State. He also has closed polling places in predominantly black neighborhoods. He’s instituted an “exact match” system that denies someone the right to vote if their name doesn’t exactly match what they have on their voting rolls. And the best part? You won’t know! This effects 53,000 applications, 80% are African American. Mr. Kemp has done this before. Last time it was 33,000. He was taken to court and lost, but that didn’t stop this patriot. Oh no, he had a slightly different piece of legislation passed by the state and he’s now got 53,000 on hold.

He’s running against a black woman, who is super good. You don’t think that has any effect do you? I think not, because he was doing this stuff before that.

Then there’s Ohio. Home of that Republican Governor who tries to pass himself off as a middle of the road kind of nice guy. Of course, if you read the sleazy way he went about shutting down abortion clinics in his sate you’d know otherwise. But here’s another fascinating tidbit. Along the eastern edge of his state if you are on welfare you have to work. Interestingly, that’s where all the black people in the state live. If you’re farther west, you can sit on your ass, and get your check.

Our country is so in the dumper. I used to think we could recover. I’m not sure anymore. The bitterness, the hatred, the denying of reality, the acceptance of lies, the gaslighting, the name calling, the abandoning of our principles. It’s not the world I was thinking we were going to be living in, but here we are.

946 Days to Go

PS Apparently, Millennials don’t like American Cheese. They want Camembert or Gouda. No Cheese Whiz for them! At least, someone has some class.

Day 634 Friday October 12, 2018     947 Days to Go

Turkish sources report they have audio and video evidence that a U.S. resident who was a columnist for The Washington Post was interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered by the Saudis. He was lured to the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Our intelligence community knew about communication discussing this entrapment. The White House appears to have done nothing to warn this person. Our president said that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. He was told that he was a permanent resident. The president went on to say that he didn’t want to stop the sale of arms worth $110 Billion to Saudi Arabia, and that there were other ways to handle this situation, once they had all the facts.

The fact is a U.S. legal resident was interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. This was done at the express command of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

The fact is that there is no deal with the Saudis for $110B in arms. What had been negotiated and agreed upon happened during the Obama administration. Trump had nothing to do with it. Most of it is MOI “Memorandum of Intent,” not signed deals. 

But for Trump it is clear, as it always has been since before he took office, that everything we as a country, as citizens of this country and the world, is for sale. It’s for sale as long as Trump gets the money.

A Washington Post reporter has been interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. 

A U.S. resident has been interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. 

But hey we’re supposed to get one hundred and ten billion!

That’s the value of our values to Donald Trump.

Trump also wants to give the Medal of Freedom to Devin Nunes. I guess for his brave work in exposing our intelligence gathering methods and sources.

Trump also had Kayne West in the White House yesterday and we were treated to a long rambling incoherent speech from Kayne. It went on for ten minutes I am told. Even Trump shut up. I have never “gotten” Kayne. I don’t understand his music, or anything else about him. Why people think his music is great is beyond me – and I’ve tried.

Kayne is to Trump as Sammy Davis Junior was to Nixon, the token black man.

 interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. 

 interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. 

 interrogated, tortured, murdered and dismembered. 

947 Days to Go

 

PS Scene at the super market before Hurricane Michael hit. This person is prepared!