Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Okay, I’m about done with basketball for now, except, except, we just went to lunch and watched “Pardon the Interruption”. Wilbon and Kornheiser had lots to say about South Carolina and Iowa’s Caitland Clark. They knew how to spell LSU, might have actually watched those women play for a few seconds. Virginia Tech was dismissed by both with an “I don’t know anything about Virginia Tech.” Great in depth analysis guys. Maybe they haven’t looked at the bracket to realize only South Carolina or Iowa can make the final game. That leaves the other side for either LSU or Virginia Tech. Had they watched how LSU and Miami played they might have had an opinion. Had they looked at the ACC’s leading #1 and #2 players in Kitley and Amoore they might have said to themselves, “Huh. Maybe this here VerGinYa Tech is purdy good!”
On to economics:
I recently tapped into some conservative economic forecasters and stock pickers selling economic newsletters. Their pitch is twofold:
1. The country runs on diesel and coal. Green energy isn’t big enough to make a dent, and the country does not have adequate refining and transportation so at some point our power grid will collapse and there will be riots in the streets.
2. Our national debt is out of control and this will lead to weakening our economy and our national standing in the world. Plus, the Fed is making it worse, so are politicians.
I just finished reading a long invective from one of these folks who went on and on calling the Fed and its chairman and all the economists morons, stupid, and ineffective. What I did not read was anything suggesting how to fix the situation. Well, hold on, if I wanted to spend money to get their Premium Newsletter, they would give me a tip of a stock to buy. But what good would that be if the economy collapses along with the power grid and there is rioting in the streets? Surprisingly, they don’t address those kind of things.
They also like to say Biden is a clown. Why? Never made clear. I guess, “Ya gotta believe!”
Aside from DeSantis saying Florida is the place woke goes to die, his lawyers were asked in court to define what they meant as woke. To them it meant caring for others and giving a sh*t. Well, yeah Ron, I guess you are anti-caring.
I also saw a number of things pointing out stuff about liberals. AOC saying when she’s accused of being liberal she says if you mean that I’m for health care for all then yeah. And she lists a bunch of other stuff like that. The conservatives like to go on about her Gala dress and that it was a terrible ethics violation and it shows how “they do it too.” Somehow those conservative voices get real quiet about the House Ethics Committee’s findings in this regard. There was no violation. Yes, she was invited by Vogue Magazine and not the actual organization. However, Vogue Magazine runs the Gala for the MET. So in reality Vogue is the sponsoring organization. And yes she paid for the dress, the hair, and the makeup. It was late in paying and that was a staff screw up. Don’t believe it? Okay. They do it too! Yeah, but there’s a difference. She paid. it’s not like the Republican who publish books and they get bought by the pallet full. Or the the 3,403 conflicts of interest accrued to some ex-president so far.
And then there was that little blurb I saw on facebook of a young woman looking straight at you and reminding us about such things as “why can a woman get a car loan or credit card without her husband’s approval and signature?” That’s a liberal idea – not conservative. And what about the right for women to vote? etc. etc etc. All liberal ideas. If the conservatives had their way none of this would have happened. Or what about pensions for workers. You think a capitalist business man wanted that?
And then there was an interview with Jon Stewart and some politician who wanted to enforce protecting children from art that he considered pornographic. Stewart said to him that the #1 cause of children dying in our country is guns and that’s a fact. “if you are so interested in protecting children why don’t you do something about guns? But you don’t. That’s hypocritical.” Nailed it.
And there were the folks from Iowa I meet in the elevator at our hotel. i mentioned to one that Henry Wallace had been a friend of the family and drew a blank stare. The next Iowan knew of him. Wallace had been FDR’s Vice-President and was replaced by Truman in the last term. There was fear that Wallace was too liberal. I’m beginning to think liberal means “concerned about things and wanting to do something to fix the situation.” This as opposed to the Republican and conservative “Aw shucks. I don’t know nuthin’ “ attitude.
When Wallace ran for President in ’48 he was called a commie and that ended his ability to garner many votes. I often wonder if he had been President would we have gotten a health care system for everyone and not the company mandated one that we ended up with. It’s been a mess for decades. We passed the highest prices for some of the worst health care in the world. You or your baby are more likely to die in childbirth here than in all modern countries (but one.) Hell, some war zones have better outcomes than we do.
Another school shooting, this time in Nashville. A woman took the open mic after the press conference to say she had been involved in another school shooting at home and now she was on vacation and involved in another. She asked the question, “How many more?”
Oh and then there’s that flaming liberal from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, she did not approve of the midsized banks getting less regulation, being labelled community banks, and having their asset limits expanded. I don know about those conservative pundits who keep claiming the U.S. banking system is going to collapse, but Warren pointed out exactly what would happen if those asset limits were expanded and she opposed the reappointment of Jerome Powell specifically because he did everything he could to give banks like Silicon Valley as much leeway as possible. Warren thinks banking should be boring and not risky. She wants to see the Glass-Steagall regulations reinstated that were repealed and under the Republicans. Why? Because they worked and kept our banks whole and not in trouble like some are now.
Now the Georgia legislatures have passed a bill that allows them to get rid of prosecutors they don’t like. As has been pointed out multiple times, this is how authoritarian regimes work. Welcome to Fascism 2023.
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