Once again it is time for some Random Musings On Current Events from the mind of a quiet, unassuming (at least in my own opinion) person observing the ramblings, rumblings, rants and revelations in the media. Additionally, I know, and it has been proven, that Twitter and Facebook would censor what I have to say so I will say what I feel the need to say in this medium. However, with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter perhaps I will have to take Twitter out of my introduction but not just yet. Time will tell I and for that reason I will not remove Twitter just yet from my Random Musings On Current Events introductory paragraph.
I was remembering an incident in my childhood the other day and it was of my playing a game called Blitzkrieg with a friend at his house after school. Blitzkrieg is a board game in which odds are placed on different pieces depending upon what the piece represents (for example armored division, infantry division, etc.), dice need to be rolled to determine battle outcomes, and the objective, like the name of the game implies, is to use tanks and infantry to overtake your opponent’s territory. Needless to say, one could spend a fair amount of time just reading the instructions to learn the intricacies of ensuring the dice are rolled right to ensure the alignment of odds remained objective and as realistic as possible. Well, my friend, who did not remain my friend for too much longer, did not want me to read the instructions. We would play for a while using the rules as he explained them until I began to get the upper hand and then would “remember” or read another subtly in the rules that gave him the advantage. This went on for a little while until I had to go home for dinner or something like that. I later asked for and got the same game for Christmas and learned that he had changed several rules to his advantage and that playing the game, according to the rules, was much different and it is something that I have never forgotten. Later this same kid grew up, went to work for former Senate Leader Harry Reid in Washington D.C. and has permanently settled in the greater Washington DC area working for or as a lobbyist. It seems like the perfect place for an individual who does not want others to know the rules and who arbitrarily changes the rules to their advantage with no regard for me but in fact to ensure the rules are changed contrary to my benefit.
The S&P 500 is officially in bear market territory, the CPI is at 8.6%, crypto currencies are in the midst of a huge sell off, there has evidently been a run on banks in rural China and all I can do is yawn. So what? Gasoline is now over $6 per gallon and unlike Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and others in New York and San Francisco, I do not have public transportation available to me. I must fill my vehicle up to participate in the economy. This means less money to spend on other items and less time to listen and watch media drivel because I am having to work more and work harder to make dollars stretch just to make ends meet.
I heard someone talking about how this is the worst inflation since 1981 and I had to yawn yet again. This inflation may be much worse than 1981 because the basket of goods used to determine the CPI has changed since 1981. However, after a cursory look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics it is difficult to determine what specifically is in each basket of goods. Additionally, there is the CPI, the core CPI and the core core CPI to further cloud my research. Looking at a summary of changes page on the website it states what categories of the CPI were changed over the years but it provides no specifics. In my line of work, I want and must have specifics, but I do not have the time to dig any deeper into the CPI calculations currently. When something is this difficult to tease out, I must wonder if they are hiding something? For instance, I have heard, that in 1981 the basket of goods used to determine the widely reported CPI included food and gasoline which it does not now. I this is true I know the price of gasoline has doubled in the last year. Using real simple math, not the fancy equations that economists are so fond of that further refine numbers, there has been a 100% increase in gasoline price this past year and food has gone up at least 25% in this past year. Applying these numbers, I would have to say the inflation rate must be near 20% if food and fuel were included in the CPI. If food and fuel were used in the basket of goods in 1981, I then must ask myself, “Why are food and fuel not used in the CPI’s basket of goods today? Why hasn’t the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates in the same manner that Paul Volcker did in 1981? Why are the rules not being told to me and why are they selectively being changed and why has everyone fallen for the fraudulent Keynesian Economic theory?” So, I have concluded that the currency is being debased to pay for debt and because the US Dollar is the world’s reserve currency the globalists in the US have been able to get away with it. Additionally, I think the numbers are being manipulated to make it appear not as bad as it really is for the propagandist in the press to disseminate.
It is election season and advertisements are being mailed to me and commercials are running nonstop on television when I get a minute to watch my favorite baseball team’s game. What amazes me is what is printed or said in these advertisements is nothing substantial and or substantive. I know this has been going on for a long time but, for some reason, I feel like typing about this now. It just tells me how corrupt the election process is that it does not matter what a candidate stands for but how much money they must essentially hypnotize enough people into voting for them. The latest nonsense I read in the media involves one of the Republican’s more viable threats to the Nancy Pelosi machine backed Governor of my state. This news conveniently came out on the day of my state’s primary election. The nonsense involves a story published in the Democrat controlled media propagandists that the candidate made an election related phone call or phone calls using the office phone while at work in his previously elected position. OK, this is probably not the best thing nor an ethical thing for him to have done and he should be fined or whatever but in the big picture, really? Who cares? This allegation comes midst rumors of Nancy Pelosi’s (or perhaps Harry Reid’s) Democrat machine secretly funding of a fringe Trump supporting group that mysteriously formed out of nowhere that advertised against this Republican challenger to Grandma Nancy’s man in which the candidate was portrayed as not “Make America Great” enough. This would not surprise me considering the Harry Reid machine did just the same to get himself re-elected many years ago causing a Republican Candidate to win a Senatorial Primary knowing that the candidate could never win the general election. Additionally, the current Governor signed an election reform bill allowing mail in ballots on a Sunday evening during the pandemic passed by a Legislature late on the preceding Friday night that did not meet in person. Hmm, I ask myself, what should I believe and who is calling who unethical?
A storm raked where I live this past weekend with winds in excess of fifty miles per hour. Tree limbs fell and not a word in the press. If something like this happened in the eastern United States there would be at least a day or two of headlines and an emergency declaration made with at least a hundred million dollars pledged to affected state or states. Of course, this happens all the time here and we know and accept this is something that has to be dealt with several times a year and we survive without the government’s help. Why is it that other parts of the country cannot accept and deal with their own problems without going to the federal government for help?
Speaking of which, installed President Biden visited New Mexico to address the Federal Government started wildfires that are raging across New Mexico. I drove through this part of the country mere months ago and it was gorgeous but tinder dry. What mental giants conceived of starting a controlled burn in this area knowing a storm was coming? Oh, wait a minute, they are probably related to the same mental giants in the area near where I live that had a controlled burn several years ago and decided not to post fire watches when a storm was approaching. That fire erupted into an inferno that destroyed multiple homes, threatened mine along with the whole neighborhood, but fortunately was extinguished by the rain that eventually arrived in the storm after nearly twelve hours of dry winds. Evidently the New Mexican mental giants are less mentally gifted than their relatives in my neck of the woods because they chose the spring to start their fires when the likelihood of moisture in the storm is far less than in the fall as was the case in the fire near my home. What also amazes me is there is so much weather information out there to see what sort of weather might be coming in. How can mistakes like these be made? How are people in these agency’s being vetted for positions of responsibility and authority? Evidently, it has nothing to do with competence because these types of mistakes are unacceptable and not only should the people making these bad decisions be fired but so should the people who gave these people the authority to make these sorts of decisions. It does not take a rocket scientist to read and understand a weather forecast. Although now that I made this comment the National Weather Service will have the attention of the left wing lunatics focused their way so that only politically connected can be promoted if it has not already begun. It seems the cancer of forest neglect and mismanagement has now metastasized well beyond the borders of California.
In closing I have only one thing to say, “God bless America and I mean God bless to all who are in this country; both to those who are patriots, those who are enemies and to those who fall somewhere in between.”