“Greedflation” is the most under-reported economic news in years. This is largely because it’s hard to quantify. But it’s an indictment of unfettered capitalism and legions of CEOs.
It’s great that the Biden administration has accomplished so much economically for the country. But the sad reality is that so many basic needs remain obscenely expensive, causing widespread hardship.
Republicans claim the economy is bad but ALL of the Republican men I know, and some women, have purchased giant, new, shiny pickup trucks with sticker prices more than my first home cost.
So, if things are so bad for working Republicans, why are there millions of pickup trucks sold for $72,000 each to Republican men and women?
Yep, that is how much those trucks passing you at 56 mph in a 25 mph school zone cost.
The reality is: The economy rocks, Republicans know it and Republicans have wasted millions, perhaps trillions on pickup truck trinkets they do not need.
Republicans really just want to hate. And, so, they make stuff up that allows them to do so.
Like, "The economy is bad". So, "Democrats are bad".
Thanks, Mike, for this explanation of the truck bonanza. I thought I had somehow missed the day when the sky opened up and trucks fell out. They are many and everywhere.
And the stupid inside says you WILL look at me because you will hear me because I have installed LOUD exhaust pipes. But you can’t see my face because the windows are tinted very dark.
Not at my house, Jen. I fly the US Colors full time (correctly presented, properly illuminated in the dark, and replaced when worn or tattered) alongside a Ukranian Flag, or an inclusive Pride flag, or the COPS flag (concerns of police survivors; a black standard with a single blue line honoring police officers killed in the line of duty; flown during the month of May). Between the flags is an "In Our America" sign: In Our America: All People Are Equal, Love Wins, Black Lives Matter, Immigrants and Refugees Are Welcome, Disabilities Are Respected, Women Are In Charge Of Their Own Bodies, People and Planet Are Valued Over Profit, Diversity is Celebrated.
I will not fly the flag from the bed of my shiny new (now four years old) pick up truck that mostly hauls trash, yard debris, stone for more yard projects, delivers CostCo runs to friends, and hauls multiple musicians and instruments to gigs. I am a stickler for proper flag display, and absent being in a parade, flying it on my vehicle is not proper.
I agree that flying the flag in most cases means some wing nut R which includes our awful neighbor across the street. The problem with the flag has been around a long time. After 9/11, the newspaper put in a flag you could put in your window which we did. Our surrogate daughter wanted to complain about it, but we told her why it was there.
There are many thousands of Americans who display the American flag who want nothing to do with Trump or the republicans. We have one, right next to our Black Lives Matter sign.
We have a few of those around here. One of the loudest is a motorcycle and he has to shift constantly to make the most noise. Our dog also hates this and we try to explain that it's just the a.hole.
Then we get complaints about the price of groceries. Republicans are too stupid to recognize climate change and think groceries are “grown” in the grocery store. Big Ag isn’t going to tell them otherwise as long as they can keep selling greasy snack “foods.”
Nailed it. The pecking order, somebody to look down on. What if we couldn’t identify any “lessers?” Our egos would crash and burn. Think about it. What if we really had to assume that any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are. It would turn our world upside down. In fact, just giving some “lessers” a shot at a chance is more than most fancy pickup owners can abide. We have, not only the rich, but the newly affluent (or majorly in debt) “deserving” ready to stomp into the muck, those with their noses pressed to the glass for a chance to pluck our chickens, and labor in our behalf. Sort of what our ancestors did. Except for chump. His ancestors were grifters, mob bosses, military deserters, and pimps. Skills they passed down to any greedy bastard without a conscience.
"...any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are." Jeri, this is the crux of the Circle of Life we strive and strive to practice. It is balance, it is how we survived here for eons before the "western" ways swept it aside. You have hit it smack on the head. If we can only get us all on that path, we will be able to light the Eighth Fire.
It is also the thought that strikes fear into the hearts of those who have been able to ascend one rung up on the ladder. What happened to "there but for the grace of God go I."
You could be related! During the time I was consulting with the Bay Mills nurse, she was excited about a big tribal reunion with their Canadian Ojibwe relatives. But, sadly, when the large Canadian group got to the bridge, the U.S. Customs wouldn't let them through. Since then, when my husband goes to Canada, he just shows his "Indian card" and the customs officer at either border can't even ask him a question much less delay or deny his passage. You probably know more about this than I do. Just thrilled for Native power.
He is Mississauga First Nation (where his mother was born). In my public health nursing and advocacy career I worked with the Bay Mills clinical director, as well as with tribes here in Northern Michigan.
Good for you, Jeri, for your notes on the "pecking order."
If schools continue to be ruled by and for standardized tests, of course there's always "somebody to look down on," because life as only sets of numbers and categories has no room for seeing how "any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are."
To see and value others as individuals requires some skill, training, readiness to see and value others, life, as you do. Requires essay writing, discussion, humanities.
When the people of Finland determined to have the best schools in the world, they made it policy to hire only the best as teachers and, at the same time, to trust the teachers to decide everything themselves -- books, lesson plans, everything.
And the first thing the teachers decided? To abandon most all standardized testing in all schools.
Also, most teachers in the now-world's-best public schools assign no homework, as that really exists only to keep youth enslaved testing (and thus to the billionaires and corporations which ever reduce life to numbers and categories only).
Thank you. I know they don't teach empathy in school, but just being in the midst of so many others taught me that people come in all stripes. It most assuredly starts with parents. It doesn't take a genius to see that some struggle so much more than others. I always thought that a helping hand was much preferable to a crippling kick for most. Sorting, rating, and ranking have their places, but are so defining to an unnecessary extent. People are complicated. In fact, I used to get sort of upset at Sesame Street when my young child watched the song "This one thing is not like the other, one of these things does not belong." Useful and educational, but I think people generalize the concept to too many aspects of humanity. Sorry for another rant.
Thank you Phil. Just old, seen too much, and fed up. Hard to believe how other "elders" have been bamboozled by non-stop bull schitt, from the ugliest specimens of humanity.
To own those $72,000 trucks they borrowed big time, along with huge mortgages and large credit card balances. The redneck life ain't cheap and if Republicans gain control and the economy crashes, these people are going to be in deep trouble financially. Of course, their deep seated resentment of Democrats will be who they blame for their financial woes. These boom and bust cycles, largely created by the wealthy robber barons, will continue until We The People force politicians to reign in "greedflation" and pass stringent campaign finance laws.
Oh, and my pet peeve - trucks in today's world are mostly made for show, and are priced out of the working woman's price range!
My truck is so high off the ground I can't reach into the cab or bed without a step stool, and its still difficult even then. Forget my dog being able to jump in either.
I drive a 20 yr old 4x4 Tacoma 4 cyl (cheaper to work on) w/ just over 200,000 miles on it. I’d consider a new truck (I can only afford one vehicle & I haul yard goods like chips & mulch, etc., so need a truck), but they are awful! Full of widgets & do-dads & sometimes a computer screen in the dashboard—ha, what could possibly go wrong w/ that (not talking ‘bout back-up screens). Some of the trucks have hoods that are as high as my shoulder & have been shown to be more deadly to pedestrians, bicyclists & smaller vehicles. Other countries still make and sell small vehicles, but here in the USA we super-size everything. I liken the current truck size trend to the sci-fi movie Transformers (ginormous) characters. A pet peeve of mine….OK, end of rant!
Our Chevy suburban has 546,000 miles. The brake lines rusted off 🤣 so we had to buy a newer vehicle. We bought a Toyota Tundra. We have 10 acres, we need a truck. I'm a techtard, so figuring out how the operations work...eek. I don't touch anything. My husband loves to drive that goodness. I hate it. I've hit 11 deer and I've had too many accidents. I have given myself PTSD from my own driving.
I checked out some used trucks, but none had manual transmissions (dislike automatics for mountain driving—they never shift when I prefer to!) & all had electric windows. Where I live, driving alongside a river is common & one “oops” can land you in the drink….so I prefer manual hand-crank windows if I needed to escape the cab….don’t think they even make them anymore. I prefer knobs & buttons because muscle memory can guide turning on/off things (heat/cooling/radio) w/o having to take eyes off the road. My only upgrade from my first truck (a 1990) to my 2003, was getting air conditioning, something I do use.
I got another truck a few years ago - it does have power windows but nothing else except the basics. 8' truck bed, because like you, I haul and don't need anything to distract me. Yes, a backup alarm or camera is a must
Ram has what they call a 1500 Classic Tradesman truck - standard cab with 8' bed. I don't know of anyone else that offers that anymore AND one more thing - that's hard to find that this truck has, no carpet and vinyl (instead of cloth) seats. I want to be able to open both doors and hose it out!
I only watch old Brit dramas and I laugh when the police crusie down the streets in little mini cars! My town has a bunch of scary looking retired military vehicles they haul out during a storm. I feel like I am watching playground activities when the coppers drive them.
I used to drive a ‘96 Silverado C1500. Loved that truck. She finally died 4 years ago. I miss her to this day. My son took me to the car dealership, because, retired or not, I needed a vehicle. The salesman asked if I wanted another truck. My son looked at me and said, “Do you want something you have to climb into, or something you can fall into? I’m getting older and shorter. Easy decision. I got a Toyota sedan.
I miss that truck to this day. When my grandson was a toddler, he got to sit in the front in his carseat and see the road out the windshield. He would look at me and just laugh. Good times.
I really wish the manufacturers would bring back the small trucks of the 1990s. My understanding is they quit making them because of the EPA emission standards. I guess the regulations for the heavier trucks are easier to meet? And they make more money on the big trucks. So frustrating.
My husband still drives his 1990 Mazda pick up. It is low to the ground and has a large bed. Everyone I know wants a small pickup and you just can't find them.
My mom's circa 1980 Ford F250 is still going strong. She sold it many years ago to a friend when she got she got out of the horse business. My daughter rides with the woman who owns it. She is driving it this weekend. I know my mother (who died at age 94 in 2020) is smiling.
Oh, those sexy huge boxy trucks with so much space that is never used. They are marvels of engineering and marketing genius. In Texas, more young women would have given me the time of day had I been driving a Ford F150 instead of a Mazda.
When looking for a vehicle in 2019 just before the pandemic, I sat in a souped up Ford that looked like a Transformer waiting to unfold into action. Seriously, I was grinning ear to ear just sitting in it, in the showroom. And then I thought about my senior citizen's spatial perception, my gasoline budget, the too-small 2-car garage in Texas, and oh yes, what do I really need, and decided to keep my 2007 Toyota (230,000 miles). But it was fun for a few minutes.
Mike, thanks for confirming my suspicion that those huge shiny pickups that tailgate me at high speeds are Republicans. The ownership of these vehicles is one demonstration of their need for power; their reckless driving is a symptom of their unceasing anger. As someone who has been rear-ended four times and has the injuries to prove it, I have a hard time not focusing on the rear view mirror when it fills with the grille of yet another Republican vehicle!
I agree Mike, especially about the trucks which tear around on city streets like they are on the freeway. Sometimes they have jacked up wheels. I not only see bad driving, but I also see low gas mileage. There is a local ad from a store in Portland which specializes on all the silly and expensive accouterments for such vehicles. And often they have big flags flying as well. We had a phone meeting with our financial advisor yesterday who told us that the economy is doing fine and he explained some about how the Federal Reserve works. He had some very apt and funny metaphors about how they go about things.
Mike, remember the movie “Time Machine”? I was little when it came out. I had nightmares about the Morlocks for years. Much later there was a trailer for a movie I refused to go see with a little girl staring into a fuzzy tv screen, “They’re baacck”
It seems that Horror Stories fascinate us cuz we thought we were safe cuz they’re real. We are mistaken about the reality part
Florida’s greedflation is unfettered with a Governor who is MIA and has taken political contributions from many corporations in order to fill political coffers. People are being driven out of their homes and communities because of it. It’s corruption on every level.
Now DeSantis says he’s sending a battalion of the Florida National Guard to Texas, as well as the State Guard to assist in Abbott's razor wire border barrier antics. Wasting more money, manpower, and resources on something that could be resolved much more diplomatically, sanely, and effectively than this Republican penchant for “nihilism and performative politics" as Jennifer Rubin of the Washingtion Post said today.
Yes, SCOTUS confirmed that only feds have jurisdiction over borders. So naturally Abbott has doubled down and says if feds cut the razor wire, he’ll just have it replaced.
Remember when the Covid-19 vaccinations were first released and DeSantis offered them to his rich donors if they contributed to his campaign. Quid pro quo much?
📣 Let’s make sure struggling Floridians are aware of our free-spending governor.
168 MILLION !!!
“The failed campaign and expansive political operation aiming to make Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the Republican nominee for the White House cost $168 million, according to filings reported to the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday.”
Unfortunately, the campaign funds were not from tax dollars, Floridians will only get their heads out of the sand when an income tax is needed for the state to survive!
“TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—Faced with mounting campaign bills and dwindling donations, Ron DeSantis revealed on Friday that he had been forced to sell his beloved white go-go boots.
The Florida governor appeared anguished by the loss of his go-go boots, which aides disclosed were by far the most cherished footwear he owned.
DeSantis said that he had tried to make cuts elsewhere to preserve his ownership of the boots but that, “in the end, the numbers didn’t add up.”
“In a perfect world, I could run for President and own white go-go boots,” he said. “Sadly, we do not live in that world.” 😂😂
Just think $168 million is gone, it has been wasted for nothing which is what desatan is, a nothing, and those donors don’t have that money to pass around anymore, that’s a big chunk of change that won’t be put to more nefarious uses. 😎
“Greedflation” is also the product of a less-competitive marketplace. In a competitive marketplace, competitors within an industry force each other to hold down prices; if they don’t, they’ll lose marketshare to companies which do. In the old, disproven free-market model, markets unfettered by govt remain free and competitive, but in fact, they are taken over by a few dominant corporations, and competition disappears.
The first year my company was in business CSC tried to bankrupt us by telling four of our clients in Nebraska that we weren't allowed to work on their computer systems. These four companies were all Fortune 100 companies headquartered in Nebraska. If we chose to fight them it would have quickly bankrupted us. (One of TFFG's favorite tactics).
Our brilliant attorney went to the NE AG's office and the AG wrote a letter to CSC telling them that they needed to rescind the letter ASAP since they were committing tortious interference with 4 large NE companies and our fledgling company.
Our rates were about half of what CSC was charging these companies and we were an easy mark. The day after the letter was delivered to CSC in Austin, TX their general counsel was in our attorney's office in Lincoln, NE. They wrote the letter to the 4 companies and gave us permission to work on their systems anywhere in the world.
We have no way of knowing how many companies and people TFFG has forced out of business with his greedflation and by being a "sick MF" as Biden called him yesterday, but it is likely a large number.
We were lucky that CSC wrote the letter to the Nebraska corporations and that our attorney had a friend that just happened to be the AG otherwise, we would have been finished.
This is one of the reasons why so many companies end up being monopolies charging whatever they can. The pharmaceutical industry has likely killed thousands of people with their overpriced drugs and yet Congress and the White House have done little until now.
Of course, another path to becoming a monopoly is to buy up your competition and jack up the prices on their products or to pull them off the market and jack up the prices on their own products.
Another way is to buy them and sell of the assets. Just ask Mitt Romney for more detailed explanation. Blue collar people lose their jobs and often their earned retirement.
The de-regulation of the airline industry has been a boon for about 5 airlines, and many a shareholder. And a horror for everyone else, unless you have your own jet.
So many good airlines swallowed up by the few that remain.
Stanley, I am ecstatic about the antimonopoly positions of the Biden Administration. But it must certainly increase the support of those monopolies for TFG….
Well, it started out as The Former Guy, to avoid using Trump’s name. Some people use the F to symbolize a little more dislike. And there are those who combine those two and use TFFG.
So true, the key elements of a true capitalist economy are missing such a competition for customer dollars! Exxon Mobil worst merger decision by federal regulators!
Yes, especially greedy real estate industry and landlords. Housing prices are a nightmare. I also think property taxes need to be reviewed as they’ve gone up so much that people are forced out of their homes and neighborhoods.
Let’s also not forget employers continuing to underpay employees. It should be a crime to not at least compensate for rising cost of living. This is an ongoing disaster, especially for Generation X who are now in their 40’s - 50’s and who will start to reach retirement age in 15-20 years and the majority won’t be able to afford it.
Employers have mostly stopped pensions in favor of 401k, but many couldn’t contribute if they didn’t earn enough to cover their expenses. I’ve seen discussions on social media that many people are looking for an “exit strategy” for when they can no longer work but can’t afford to retire. I have no doubt this is not a new problem, but it’s largely been ignored by mainstream media and society, but I feel certain that the numbers of people who will actually do this is going to be alarming.
If younger generations think they’re are being held back by student loans, wait until they are suddenly having to support their non-employable family members who have under-budgeted for retirement or who have no retirement funds.
Thanks for mentioning property taxes; mine are now over $10K and still climbing. I attribute this partly due to living in a city with many educational, religious and nonprofit institutions that pay no property taxes. But I suspect there is also declining interest by state legislators in Local Government Assistance - which used to provide funds for infrastructure to poorer cities. State income tax has been exceeding state budgets but politicians would rather give the excess to tax refunds and pet projects rather than LGA.
Just like freezing/cutting funding for poor people, it’s popular to treat poor cities the same way. So property taxes soar while streets are so bad that tires and axels are regularly destroyed.
The middle class is being bled dry because of wealth inequality and unfair tax cuts to the wealthy & corporations. If they paid their fair share, they could reduce property taxes accordingly.,
Yep. Absolutely. Property taxes are an outrageous way to support city services. Not to mention that increases in property values bear no relationship to the income of the homeowner. Retirees are particularly vulnerable to being taxed out of their homes.
While you don’t want to chastise Wall Street too hard, corporations are investing $100’s of billions in America under President Biden, we also need to remember that lots of us have our 401K’s in the market, it is necessary to point out to the voters that prices not coming down is the fault of corporations. I don’t think there is anything the government can do in this regard.
Nikki Haley made a lot of noise in the lead up to the New Hampshire primary about a competency test for anyone over 75. She singled out the President in the ads. Besides trump, Grassley is the poster child for a competency test.
Probably only because Grassley has the R after his name. Habit and name recognition rule too many people's voting choices. And hey, Chuckie has been a Senator for 43 flippin' years...that is 8--count 'em EIGHT!!!--terms as Senator.
I don't particularly give a damn about his age, but 8 terms as Senator is more than time and far past to step aside and give the next generation a stab at helping run the government FOR THE PEOPLE (well, if Repubbies ever do remember how to actually govern, of course). The doddering old white guy has long been fossilized in his patriarchal, partisan thinking.
OK. The cost of "living" in today's world. Add up internet (and cable if you still have it) cell service, electricity, water, heating and cooling, car repair - that's just to function.
And if you have a kid or two, they could stay home and wear rags - or they would participate in sports, grow out of their clothes in days, maybe have some special healthcare needs...
Oh, there I go again, rattling on about the healthcare that costs us twice as much as other developed nations - healthcare if you can find a doctor who isn't booked out for several months. We are being robbed. But we are "exceptional Americans".
Fortunately I have very good healthcare insurance, however that company just reimbursed my retina specialist practice the Full amount billed over $10k!! The appointment took less than a cumulative hour of the practice time! The lions share of the cost is the medicine injected into my eye to hold macula degeneration in check.
I am pleased for you. And I wish you well with your eyesight.
I have a question that can't be answered. Who was the evil person who originally said that for purposes of health insurance - your eyes, your ears and your teeth were not part of our bodies - not part of our "health". It occurs to me that if I can't chew, my health will suffer. If I can't hear, I would have trouble finding the job I need. If I can't see...
Answer to your good Q, Bill, may be in biology as molecular only.
Most U.S. schools stress molecular models only in biology for the same reason most K-12 lets standardized testing order all teaching priorities.
See, Bill, it's a matter of seeing life as numbers and categories only.
I'm guessing the health and insurance industries leave out eyes, ears, and teeth as parts of the body because those things aren't as treatable by pills as are the other parts of the body. And pills are key to the molecular view of life, where everything -- everything -- is incremental. Just add more bits of this, bits of that -- more molecules, more pills, more profits for Big Pharma.
Standardized testing just doubles down on that view of life.
I receive injections hopefully every 8 weeks in my eyes to the tune of 2,500 each cycle. Without these injections I blink non stop due a neuro problem known as blepharaspsams. I am currently on a 12 week cycle and fighting with insurance companies for injections every eight weeks. Otherwise I am losing about 4 months a year blinking!
I need to keep working to afford the real estate taxs that skyrocketed!
Yes, Bill! Add housing to the list. The numbers of homeless families has increased in lockstep with rent increases, while TANF (previously AFDC) did not increase by a dime in 25 years.
BTW, that was possible because President Clinton’s “Welfare Reform” converted what had been an entitlement income supplement for the poorest families into a block grant program. This allowed states to spend the federal money on drug testing and parenting classes rather than cash that paid the rent.
Randall, did your price per killowatt hour increase 18% or did your power usage increase due to the winter weather thus increasing your monthly bill? We live in "the middle of nowhere" in the rural northern Arkansas Ozarks. Our power is provided by a member-owned rural electric cooperative. We pay 10 cents per killowatt hour for the first 500 hours used and then 8 cents per kilowatt for the usage above that. Because those who are served by the co-op are also the owners we do not pay inflated rates to provide profits to shareholders.
The winter rates on electricity here in Connecticut are tough. My electric bills thru November were under $60. In December, it was $95. In January, $135. I keep my thermostat at 62°.
You did see the part where the thermostat is set at 62, right? It's an apartment with all electric heat. You may have a different supplier, too. Good for you! I never switched from Eversource. :-)
Randall, here in far northern CA I’m awaiting my PG&E bill…an PUC approved rate hike (what were they thinking?) is slated to go into effect w/ hefty increases expected. PG&E for all their profits have not been good caretakers of their infrastructure & have been held liable for deadly & costly BIG fires. I, too, would like to see our utilities be publicly held, with hawk-eyed oversight. Sure, the management and on-the-ground workers should be paid decently and have decent benefits as well (a “good” job), but w/o the massive profits going to shareholders instead.
That's a winter usage rate. Not inflation. Jeez. I don't pay anything for electric where I live. By far the highest expense is food since I don't cook much and delivery is expensive.
I do cook and a price shop. One of my healthy choices is making my own black bean burgers using dry beans and brown rice including lots of fixings. My patties cost per unit about .13 cents per burger. Opps, inflation must have sent the price sky high to .15 cents per burger.
For you, I will only charge $5.00 a burger. Because you’re hungry. As a tire salesman once responded to my gasp when he told me their tire prices, “…You know I gotta eat steak.” I didn’t buy his tires. Wrong thing to say to a guy who loves cows.
Housing costs, especially for rental housing. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, rent increases have been outpacing income gains. "Median rents have risen nearly continuously since 2001 in inflation-adjusted terms and are 21 percent higher as of 2022. Meanwhile, renters’ incomes have risen just 2 percent during the same period." The number of cost-burdened renters in the U.S. - households that pay more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities - is at a record high 22.4 million. More than 12 million renter households have housing costs that consume more than HALF of their income. Needless to say, this leaves little left over for food, transportation, and other basic needs.
I live in the most expensive city in the US, San Francisco, CA and I have NEVER paid $14 for butter. I buy the most expensive brand and just paid $6.69 for a pound of Danish Creamery my preferred brand.
I stock up when it's in stock. It's the best and the only one that I've found that wraps each quarter in paper backed foil. Keeps it fresh! Never, ever paid $14.00 for Horizon brand organic. 😕
Sad to say, the renowned Fairway market in NYC has been charging $14 for Horizon organic butter and about $7 for non-organic. Not sure why. Probably a northeast problem.
BUTTER: Grade AA closed at $2.7600. The weekly average for Grade AA is $2.6230 (+0.0586).
CHEESE: Barrels closed at $1.4700 and 40# blocks at $1.5375. The weekly average for barrels is $1.4590 (-0.0023) and blocks, $1.5120 (+0.0295).
NONFAT DRY MILK: Grade A closed at $1.2200. The weekly average for Grade A is $1.1960 (+0.0091).
DRY WHEY: Extra grade dry whey closed at $0.4425. The weekly average for dry whey is $0.4380 (+0.0249).
BUTTER HIGHLIGHTS: Retail demand is steady, aside from winter storm activity negatively impacting demand in some northwestern parts of the West region. Food service demand across the nation is mixed. Harsh snow and ice storms in the West have lightened buyer activity in the region. Food service demand is reported as increasing slightly in the East region. Bulk butter demand is steady. Cream loads are readily available. However, butter production is mixed throughout the country. Some butter makers in the Pacific Northwest have contended with power losses and transportation difficulties from harsh winter weather. Some stakeholders note tight unsalted butter availability. That said, current salted and unsalted inventory levels are sufficient to meet most immediate buyer needs. Bulk butter overages range from 1 to 8 cents above market, across all regions.
Agreed. I have been paying $3.99/pound for their butter at Trader Joe's for years. Organic butter at Wegmans is $4,29/lb. That price hasn't fluctuated in probably 10 years.
Horizon organic butter is still $14 where I shop. Dairy prices in general inflated far more than needed to maintain normal cut-throat, minimally taxed profits.
Horizon butter is $8.08 a pound here in San Francisco. I don't know where you shop or where you live but I call BS on your claim. I personally don't like that brand which is why I pay $6.69 a pound. Again the MOST expensive city in the entire US. As for inflation? It has been documented to be under control and since I live in the most expensive city, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true. You are conflating and that is not useful.
Why 'call BS' on my claim? Give me a little credit; why would I lie to you? Fairway market in NYC has been charging $14 a pound for Horizon organic butter for over a year. Not sure why. Prices might be lower now; I've been buying other brands.
Clover unsalted butter is on sale at Lunardi's just outside San Francisco (San Bruno) for 6.69 a lb. Usually 9.99. I love Clover because it is locally owned. Never have I see any brand at 14.00.
Not kidding. Fairway market, among others in NYC. have been charging$14 a pound for Horizon organic butter. Of course I've been buying other brands, non-organic. And by the way, Linda, think twice before calling someone a troll or a fool.
I'm glad my grandson is finally potty trained. We bought a lot of diapers. I'm pissed off about garbage bags. Hefty and Glad bags are such crap. I was filing a bag with paper and it ripped. Paper? So I took a picture and sent a lovely email to these two companies. There answer is to buy their more expensive bags...$11.36 for a box of 20.
Looooong past time for Windfall Taxes. Record profits = we are getting gouged.
Feb 1 (Reuters) - Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab reported a $28 billion profit for 2023 on Thursday after beating fourth quarter earnings forecasts on strong liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading, allowing the oil giant to increase its dividend and extend share repurchases.
Just one example. Do we exist solely to help companies have huge profits? Why do we allow this? Why do we allow massive wealth for a few and hard capitalism for the rest of us?
Republican majorities in Congress and unchecked campaign contributions (bribery to a certain degree) are the biggest reasons. And there’s a reluctance among Democrats as well to mess with “free enterprise,” which is bizarrely worshipped like a god.
Today's Letter states, 'President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and the Democrats embraced the idea that using the government to support ordinary Americans—those on the “demand” side of the economy—would nurture strong economic growth. Republicans have insisted since the 1980s that the way to expand the economy is the opposite: to invest in the “supply side,” investors who use their capital to build businesses. '
The proof is in the pudding:
'Labor market grew 353,000 in January, soaring past expectations
The unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent.' (WAPO, excerpts)
By Lauren Kaori Gurley, Updated February 2, 2024 at 8:39 a.m. EST
'The unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent.'
'The gains were roughly double economists predictions of 177,000 reinforcing that the economy remains firmly out of recession territory with the labor market propelling the economy forward, despite some high-profile layoffs at technology and media companies.'
'Robust consumer spending has allowed employers to hire at a rate that’s fast enough to keep up with population growth and wages continue to outpace inflation, boosting workers’ spending power.'
The picture of a U.S. economy that has defied recession predictions has also been bolstered by stronger than anticipated GDP growth in the final quarter of 2023. A hardy labor market and rising wages have allowed households to spend liberally, fueling a resilient economy.
'Payrolls swelled across a variety of industries, after months of job growth concentrated in a few industries that aren’t sensitive to interest rate hikes. Professional and business services added 74,000 jobs in January, soaring past the sluggish average monthly gain of 14,000 jobs in 2023. Fueled by a rapidly aging baby boomer population, health care added 70,000 jobs, with the strongest gains in ambulatory health care, hospitals and nursing homes.'
'Retail gained 45,000 new jobs mostly at general merchandise retailers and manufacturing added 23,000 jobs though both industries have shown little overall change since early 2023. Government added 36,000 new roles, mostly in federal and local government, as wages have risen enough to keep up with the private sector.'
''Average hourly wage growth accelerated sharply in January, rising by 0.6 percent, to $34.55. Over the past 12 months, hourly wages have risen by 4.5 percent, beating inflation and boosting workers’ spending power. Federal Reserve policymakers are closely watching wages, hoping to see more moderated wage growth as a sign that inflation is under control.'
'President Biden, headed into an election year, has received a political boost from strong jobs creation and more than two years of unemployment below four percent, a stretch last seen in the 1960s, despite much criticism about rising prices throughout the economy.'
“In this low-unemployment environment, most of the laid-off workers will likely manage to find new jobs fairly quickly,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “While some individual workers may struggle to find comparable work, the layoffs are unlikely to have an effect in the aggregate.”
'The labor market has been buoyed recently by a few booming industries that are less reactive to high interest rates: health care, government, and leisure and hospitality. Last year the public sector, which includes education, finally caught up with its pre-pandemic employment levels, after struggling for years with an understaffing crisis. That has been chalked up to stagnant wages and high rates of burnout. But more robust pay and benefits packages and streamlined hiring processes have recently made these jobs more attractive to workers.' (WAPO)
One thing I have been noticing from living in Germany is that while people for the most part earn less, and they have some higher costs, although housing and food are much lower here, is that people typically have insurance for almost everything that they can do in life. Health and long term care insurance are a package deal. Personal liability insurance of millions, and legal insurance, which are more reasonable in fees than in the USA are generally purchased. So, fewer catastrophic things can happen because it is covered by your insurance. A friend, who is a teacher is burned out. She has been off this school year and is being paid because she is written off as sick. There is personal work insurance for getting sick at work and not being able to work. Right now she is spending a few weeks in a spa. Now, American teachers could use this, because burnout is a big thing. Instead of the teachers and students suffering, no one has to. The insurance companies make money off of the young not using these services so often, and then after people have paid in a long time they use them. Still, it means less catatstrophe, even if the economy is not growing as much. Still, the farmers are right to be concerned with their bottom line, although all of the farmers in our family here in Germany live quite well. This is with hard work and being able to hire Romanians to work for them during harvest time. Food is subsidized here, but differently than in the US. I appreciate going to the grocery store and having much lower bills. Still, I also live in the US, and I am glad that Biden and the Dems are trying to get the average citizen the kind of supports that are here in Germany where instead of tax credits people can get 292 € a month for each child as direct support. Also, moms and dads get longer time off from work paid, and the requirement to have their jobs held. I know there are European countries that have even more supports, but the goal is for the USA to get there too. Biden is the one to take us there.
Michael ..they have quantified greedflation, by comparing previous years percentage of profit to current year...and the conclusion was that greed was a significant driver (supply chain issues were not the bigger party in the inflation equation...but it's all we heard from the media) of last year's inflation. So back to your point...why hasn't it been a bigger story?
I hadn't see reporting of this study, which may be what you're referring to. It's damning. The CEO of Walmart said prices may start dropping soon. Color me skeptical.
As why it hasn't been a bigger story? I don't know.
Greed flatiron replaces price gouging! Unfortunately, those most vulnerable citizens rarely if ever reap the benefits of the dividends paid by these price gouging companies!
I agree. Greed is a kind of addiction and most of us have been convinced that more stuff and distractions will make us feel safe and secure. Not true. Pres. Regan led the way to a sick culture that I hope we are easing out of. Biden is leading the way not only with his policies, but with his genuine decency as a human being. I really don't think there would have been a pres. trump without the path Regan set us on. And hopefully, just as a drug or alcohol addict needs to hit a painful "bottom" to turn their life around, trump was our bottom. For millions of us, he certainly was.
It is so important to keep calling these MAGA R’s out on a daily basis. The ancient Grassley…I wonder if he really knew that he was thinking out loud. The border issue was so close to being a done deal until their lord and savior piped in. I view Mike Johnson as a loyal puppy to Leonard Leo and to Trump/Putin. So irritating!
Hoping Jack Smith goes to the 11th Circuit and asks that Cannon be removed so that his trial can proceed before November. We need a nice Blue clean sweep.
I don’t care that Grassley is ninety. I honestly don’t care about his age. But to reveal that he would deny families the child tax credit because he wants a rich tax-cut secured, says everything about his infamy. And “Family Values”!
I don't really care that he's 90, either. My mom is 93, but I would not want her making decisions about millions of people's lives, and I don't think she would either.
Marlene, he is one of my senators. I wrote him yesterday and asked bluntly, what is wrong with you? I also made sure that he knew that the reoubs are being cheered for on Russian TV. They love the obstruction the repubs are doing. Don't know if it will make a difference, but I do know he dud not appreciate being told he was practicing fascism.
I have given up writing to Grassley. I criticized him for not allowing Garland a chance at becoming a justice, and he never responded. I have written about other things and I get GOP talking points. I guess if you feel like your words have no effect, it's just a useless effort or a way to vent.
I have read the offices of the clowns have to record all our calls and letters. Whether or not this is true, who knows. To what end though? - like you said.
Rickey, good for you! Our voices must be heard. Listen, when you call their offices, their staff has to record your call and they have to keep a running total of how many calls they get a day and on what subjects. This is how they know where their constituents stand. If enough people take the time to make these phone calls, change happens. No matter what, you did the right thing!
I am totally baffled why Cannon is allowed to continue to delay the trial. Can she be removed on the grounds of malfeasance or acting based on her personal beliefs and not the law?
Based on repubs claiming President Biden is too old then they must surely believe Grassley is well beyond being capable of holding office. But of course they don’t, it’s just more GOP hypocrisy.
What I wouldn't give to wake up tomorrow morning and open my news feed, to find that a mass arrest was carried out at 0600 in DC, with all Republicans who participated in Trump's conspiracy, voting not to accept the electoral votes after the January 6 insurrection, hauled out of bed and marched off.
We could then see lots of progress as their departure for the DC Jail really did Make America Great Again.
That surely would wouldn’t it? It’s unfortunate that those who are in any kind of leadership position seem as timid as bunnies and as slow moving as turtles.
Don't count on it. The DOJ, although independent, has tried something like that before(read Prequel) only to have a POTUS, (TRUMAN) shut it down. CONservatives do not like being investigated for treason. They kind of get nasty.
"Republicans have insisted since the 1980s that the way to expand the economy is the opposite: to invest in the “supply side,” investors who use their capital to build businesses. "
After more than four decades, it's past time for a "Reganomics" performance review. Clinical reports for the efficacy of snake oil. Giving more and more money to the richest? What's that supposed to do? It just creates economic black holes the that have sucked in business after business and shed jobs in "downsizing" (the staff, not the conglomerate) and outsourcing. "Pematemps", "gig" employment, loss of defined benefit pensions, massive reduction of living wage jobs for those without college training, but decades of debt too often the price of a diploma. Republicans run up debt and Democrats run up hiring, but lots of folks still vote for the former. That's without even talking about COVID deaths, or climate abuse nipping at our heels.
I suppose you mean perMatemps -- like permafrost, only, not being climate-change-proof, more permanent.
(Then we're surprised when things don't work with an overworked, underpaid, exploited-to-the-bone workforce. And even more surprised when workers express rage and resentment in their vote? Wouldn't we too be tempted to vote for Beelzebub or even His Very Own Agent Orange if we were treated like gig workers?)
There are a bunch of companies that just announced staffing cuts. The stated reason is the cost is cutting into their profit margins and the shareholders are upset. Greedflation at its best!
Price gouging? CEO raises? Are these not flags for investigation? arent they the ‘leaders’ in that field🤨 if truth prevails a lot of impeachments/never hold office branding will come soon. But 11/24 WE can do this very thing then ‘26, ‘28,30 ..🗣️roll out the blue carpet . Time to pay attention, the piper, and hold them accountable.
This is So true and quasi criminal if not in the very least simply shortsighted for a community of people !!! Young people are not learning trades, skills… where does delivery get you …,? « "Pematemps", "gig" employment, loss of defined benefit pensions, massive reduction of living wage jobs for those without college training, but decades of debt too often the price of a diploma. Republicans run up debt and Democrats run up hiring, but lots of folks still vote for the former. »….
Keynes had it right: Proven by fiscal and monetary policies that got [helped to get] us out of the Great Depression, helped alleviate the Great Recession and now again with the name or title attributed to the WSJ of Bidenomics, the policies and programs that our current presidential administration has used to help guide us - our economy - out of the pandemic!
I continue to give credit to Reagan for two things: Nominating Sandra Day O’Connor as a Supreme Court Justice and saying that “Progress is our most important product” … or was that GE?
Let’s not forget the Rand Corp study on income inequality in the US from 1974-2018 and supply side economics sent nearly $50T (that’s trillion) from 90% of the population to the top 10%, with the vast majority going to the top 1% or really the top .001%. Nothing trickled down, but it’s a fire-hose of cash to the top.
Chuck Grassley is 110 years old. What is it with aging politicians? Retire. Go home. Enough already. They have to drop dead on the Senate floor? Grassley is ahole. He doesn't care about kids. He's trying be relevant and kiss his donor's ass at the same time. Heavy sigh, I need more coffee.
I want to see the return of the fairness doctrine, the repeal of Citizens United, a return of the Voting Rights Act as originally envisioned, a repeal of Dobbs, and application of section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the former guy and all the congressional reps who characterize the riot on January 6 as "peaceful tourism." Then I want to see anti-monopolistic policies enforced, the environment protected, climate change contested, and a whole lot more kindness and consideration for those in need.
Yes! And could we add automatic voter registration at age 18? An election day holiday, 10 day early voting window, mail in voting ... and incentives to vote - like a tax break and a whole chicken (or four pounds of tofu :)?
In Australia, voting is mandatory. The penalties are minor. But it sets a tone, right?
Yes! And mail-in voting in all 50 states. It works like a charm here in Oregon. I can't imagine having to go to the polls and stand in line in inclement weather in order to vote. That's archaic.
Thank you for pulling it all together tonight Heather. There are many fed up with all the bluster and no action. Saying no to the border bill after screaming for it for years might just get the discust level high enough to make a difference in the 2024 election.
Re the mention that Biden's economic policies aren't reaching everyone, here is a quote from a New Hampshire voter on inflation data: "I don't know whose pocketbook they're looking at, but it isn't mine." Why do the big-picture data fail to report or somehow override available data on price increases for actual purchases by ordinary people, like supermarket items or auto fuel? Ordinary folks don't care about big-picture data, but they care very much about the prices of things they actually need to get by. "Greedflation" seems to have affected precisely those prices. So why aren't Biden and the Dems fighting "greedflation" in a way that's visible to actual voters? If they are, I haven't noticed yet. THAT would be effective campaigning.
Eating lots of Michigan venison and fish these days (although, that's my preference anyway.) I get wild game and fish from local hunters and fishermen in exchangre for my apple, berry and cherry pies (local fruit).
Beautiful up there!! I live in northwest Michigan, lower peninsula, but try to get my U.P. fix every autumn! (P.S. In 1911 the Keewenau peninsula would hve been frightfully remote and cold!)
Here in Oregon as well. The name brand are highest. Last week we filled our Subaru up for $3 a gallon at Fred Meyer. Friends in Texas said they are paying $2 per gallon. I haven't seen prices like that in decades.
Gas prices typically increase during the summer months when usage increases due to vacation travel and other reasons.
Well, it’s a capitalist system, and the government is unable to control the price of goods and services unfortunately. And now with corporations becoming larger and larger, including grocery stores, what is most important to them is that their shareholders are making lots of money on their investments. We had an attempt at wage and price controls for a period of time in the 70s up here in Canada. I don’t recall the end result. I’ll check it out.
I didn't say that the administration should actually institute price controls. I said the administration should be SEEN fighting "greedflation" wherever it is happening. SOME of those corporations have actually drawn down prices when protest was loud enough.
I contacted my Senator Amy Klobuchar about greedflation. She replied and said they have passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. In addition the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, that hasn't been update since 2001. Opening up Medicare to negotiate drug prices. A bill for attacking junk fees.
Greedflation is a product of corporations keeping their shareholders fat and happy. The prices at my local grocery keep going up. They have us checking out our own groceries so they don't have to hire more help. Soon we will have to stock the shelves too. The cost of production has come down. Greed has gone up.
Lisa59, the self checkout can be a real pain in the azz! I do most of my shopping at locally owned markets (eg, co-ops & independent markets), but once in awhile will shop a Safeway…I asked one of the self-checkout monitors if it was to reduce staffing…the fellow didn’t know. My county’s Costco installed a bunch of self-checkout stations, but decided it wasn’t really a good thing & scaled way back, to just a few. That said, I do sometimes utilize them if I only have a few items, but mainly prefer to have a nice chat with the checker ringing up my purchases. Ha, remember the old days when we didn’t pump our own gas & the station attendant(s) did & even cleaned your window while the tank was filling?!
Hey Barbara, those were the days. I hate self checkouts. I'm not shy, so I stand there and say real loud, "I'm I taking someone's job here". "This is wrong". Oh well, I try.
Thank you for this informative comment. Unfortunately, it's unclear how any of the measures Sen. Klobuchar named will have any impact on supermarket prices. I totally endorse your observation about how and why things have changed there. Which is why I suggested that the Dems' campaign should focus on exactly such issues close to voters' real-life concerns, and stop repeating the global inflation numbers until they've done so.
I agree you. On the production end of things they can do more. The problem is corporate greed. They don't have much say over that. For some, it's their donors. But, you're right, people will vote based on the price of their bag of groceries. At my local co-op prices are coming down. Not a the smaller grocery chains. My Senator is aware of this.
I am seeing my grocery bill @ a local chain slowly come down. Some of the inflated items go on sale @ ½ their normal price & I stock up. That they can decrease the price for a sale says something re greedflation.
Step 1: Go local, at least local enough to find out where there might already be actual protest and not just grumbling.
Step 2: Organize, with the help of local people, to magnify existing protest. The internet works FOR the good side in this case.
Step 3: Get regional, or even national attention for such actions, if necessary by calling the editors and pointing them to such protests. This tactic is old-fashioned, but it might still work, though maybe not with Gannett-ized newspapers.
Step 4: IF step 3 works, national attention could follow.
Yes, this is WORK. For political organisations, it means real outreach, and not just issuing PR releases. For the news people, it's doing more than sitting in newsrooms and waiting for news agency reports to summarize.
I want to believe that there are Substack consumers (!) who would join in steps 1 and 2, if they were really tried.
Is it a true capitalistic system? If so....why does the federal government bailout corporations with our tax dollars? My understanding is, that in a true capitalistic system, there will be corporations who manage their business well enough to survive economic ups and downs (like COVID) and others that will fail because of poor management strategies.
So I think we have a corporate socialism system....where the feds bail out failing corporations right and left (not families...but corporations 😤).
I've argued this point, only to hear, well we need airlines so we can travel. So we need to bail them out if they are failing. My response to that comment has always been, some corporation will buy that failed airline, and make it successful. So, if we are operating under a true capitalistic society we should let it fail.
I heard a podcaster recently who said: "Democracy needs capitalism, but capitalism doesn't need democracy. Our democracy was on hold for 4 years under trump, and has been held hostage for 3 years by Republicant's.
So many of our Congressmen and women are on the payroll of these greedy corporations. Just watch their votes and they will self identify…doing their paymasters bidding. It’s not just about trump pulling their strings.
You might ask why ordinary folks make rather poor decisions re their news source. And why Fox and similar sources are not interested in explaining how macro policies actually do affect ordinary folks’ pocket books.
Do ANY cable news channels do that? I watch CNN International and have NEVER seen such a thing. Big-picture reporting dominates because it's EASIER, but it has VERY LITTLE actual impact on the opnions of ordinary people. I wish that HCR would focus on this a bit more tightly.
Fair question. Frankly, few even try to explain but some do provide more factual data about macro policies and trends. I honestly doubt the expertise and ability of most journalists to interpret economic data. It’s easier for them to cite another mediocre poll.
Hears what I found re: wage and price controls in Canada in the 1970s.
The Act 1975
Amongst its many controls, it limited pay increases for federal public employees and those in companies with more than 500 employees to 10 per cent in the first year, 8 per cent the next, and 6 per cent thereafter. Additionally, the Anti-Inflation Board was created to set wages and prices.The price and wage controls were enforced until 1978, and the act was repealed in 1979.
Reaction
The Act proved highly contentious and there was much debate over whether the Parliament of Canada had overstepped its powers in enacting the law. Consequently, the government put a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada, and in 1976 the court passed down its opinion in Reference Re Anti-Inflation Act, which declared the law constitutional.
Biden has far exceeded my expectations in most regards, but he’s squandered hard won political capital by embracing Netanyahu’s authoritarian criminality and by failing to take a hard line with Abbot in Texas. These issues could cost him the election.
Perhaps you might be interested in taking the time to read about the administration sanctioning the Kach Krazies in the West Bank for attacking Palestinians. Four of the worst of the American nutbags got all their assets frozen today. You might also be interested in the plans now being formulated for the US and other governments in Europe to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank on the conclusion of the fighting, which will force Israel to finally deal with the issue. You might also be interested, assuming you can tear yourself away from Tik-Tok, in the moves the US is making to support the Israeli opposition to Nitwityahoo, to get him out of office finally. Biden has washed his hands of Benny.
The Tik Tok remark is insulting. If it's anything like Instagram, it has quite a few videos from reporters on the ground in Gaza that probably aren't shown in the msm, even though there is a lot of censorship of posts critical of Israel or showing Palestinians in a positive light. The unspeakable destruction of people and structures, the intentional starvation, and the withholding of painkillers among many other atrocities should have prompted our Zionist compromised government to cut arms and funding long ago. 25,000 Palestinians murdered! And they're nowhere near finished with them. It's obscene to make light of it. And to think this all started 70 years with people violently forced off their land and olive groves, out of their homes, with no compensation. And then treated as subhuman, controlled, imprisoned, tortured, etc. Most of us, including the Zionists, would be seething with rage if we were in their position. They are brave and have a strong faith that Palestine will be free. I admire them and grieve for them and fear for them. The US has their blood on our hands.
TCinLA. Your condescension undermines your argument. I don’t follow Tik Tok, FB, Instagram or any other social media, which are all rife with misinformation. I use Media Bias Fact Check to vet my sources. The administration’s actions to bolster Netanyahu’s indiscriminate campaign against Gaza have done irreparable damage. My point was that a considerable number of voters have turned against Biden because of this issue. With our own democracy on the line, I’ll choose Biden over Trump, but I won’t give him a free pass for the atrocities he has enabled.
TC, do yourself a favor and watch the video conversation here with Scahill. Then maybe you’ll quit embarrassing yourself in trying to defend the Biden/Blinken complicity in a genocide by touting ‘behind the scenes’ BS.
Biden Team finally moved on Settlor Predations & Predators in The West Bank which goes to the bullseye Bibi's prior government Coalition if not the spreading conflict from Yemen to Lebanon.
I like to believe that for repubs the chickens are coming home to roost right when it's an election year. That should be enough to cause backroom panic, and if you've noticed many of the senior members smell disaster and they're heading for the exits. They want no part of the payback that could be headed their way.
I love how our Heather refers to Dems policies and programs getting passed and doing good.
She does this knowing fully well that Republicans have zero policies or programs of their own. But it might behoove us to look a bit more at the set of clown shows, lies, and hypocrisies Republicans inhabit instead.
If the Republicans -- any of them -- had acquired any humanities at any point in their public lives, and used some in reference to real people in real communities, they'd realize how our best artists, in all the arts, always signal their debts to predecessors, artists prior to them. They can't do this because they're so bereft of humanities reference that they enact their own fantasy scripts without predecessors, humane debts.
Call them names, these mostly white trash? Why hold back? They're all accepting government paychecks as if they were yet doing government work (programs and policies). But their madness is so total, so all-engulfing, they cannot see a scintilla out of their replacement madness.
So maybe our wielding the wildest of insult for them makes sense, insofar as their madness has so taken over, they all dwell in cult-land fantasies completely unaware of how their would-be performances have no art, no predecessor artists, no debts to any betters.
Phil, when you mentioned, ''White Trash,'' Lauren Boebert and Maggot Traitor Goon immediately came to mind to me. Those 2 are a great example of white trash. Would that make DJT, ''Orange Trash?''
I got reprimanded by fellow readers here yesterday, John, for using the term "trailer trash."
I was thinking of many of our dearest Republicans drawing their paychecks for jobs in Congress which they've abandoned in favor of performance theatrics. Many compete with the two you mention for vulgarity, idiocy, illiteracy.
Orange trash guy? Yes, he's still drawing his crowds of goons and gawkers who demonstrably never got any humanities in any of the schools where most spent twelve years only to attain fifth grade. Thus they're well suited to the fraud / rapist and all his "bing-bing-bongs" and constant huckster side show eclipsing even George C. Scott in "The Flim Flam Man."
Phil, i fully agree with everything you said in your reply. These rogue creeps that are in the Fascist GQP have made a total mockery of our House of Representatives with the outbursts, vulgarity, idiocy, arrogance and illiteracy. Maggot Traitor Goon grew up and was raised in arguably to most racist town in the state of Georgia, Cumming, Georgia. There is also a very small town just across the Georgia state border and only 18 miles from where i live, Ranburne, Alabama, that is blatantly racist.
I never thought i would live to see such immature and insane behavior from members of the Congress of the United States. They behave like feuding cliques in middle school. These cretins are playing silly games and getting paid a salary with our tax dollars. Most of these man/woman children had involvement with the JAN 6 insurrection and riots and really should have been immediately expelled from Congress for their part in that fiasco. I am beyond sick and fed up with these brats and their childish game playing in Congress.
I got an email tonight with the heading of, ''House member nominates Donald TUMP for the Nobel Peace Prize'' The email didn't call any names, but i believe i know who nominated him, MTG??
I’d say DJT is the Orange Trash! It’s not me saying it as much as it is his demeanor and behavior that say it! I’ve seen more mature toddlers than him!
We love her -- many of us in gratitude for how hard she works, how well she gives us forum.
Our names, our views get spotlighted, paraded? Yes. But all this in recognition of, tribute to her diligence in getting facts straight, evidence lined up -- in contradistinction to the orange diaper guy whose hordes scurry only after the slogans which bad schooling has allowed the billionaire classes to spew, manipulate.
This link came through threads to a comment I made. I’d missed this talk and highly recommend listening if you too missed it (obviously I’m a bit slow). Our professor is so enlightening: "Feb 1 from Chaplain T Nicholetti
I heard Heather's discussion at the LBJ library and learned more about why ordinary folks can get taken over by authoritarians. I also got to LOL a few times because she is so naturally witty! 211k views 3 months ago!!!"
Well, thanks for the link! That's terrific! I assume they'll finish telling each other how great it is to be there in a minute - I've saved it to my desktop for when I've finished doing what I should be doing right now... Our Professor wears her growing fame very lightly - one can only be prouder of her.
(Smile) As E M Forster said, "Only connect!" Who knows? 2 minutes of HCR might do more for the cause than the cleverest and most insulting pieces by The Lincoln Project. Taming is achieved by warmth and kindness.
Constitution Day, September 17th, the day she started the unbroken string of letters, also became Constitution Day and Citizenship Day 20 years ago. A happy coincidence? It is also one of the talks I have revisited at least 3 times.
A few weeks ago someone wrote a letter to the editor in the Ellsworth American and quoted HCR. I know of several that comment here from ME as do you.
So I sent a letter to the Ellsworth American today advertising HCR's daily newsletter. I'm not sure where in ME she lives but she's still a Mainer as far as I'm concerned.
Even if it just gets her a few readers it will have been worth it.
She has spoken at our meeting house in our town earlier last year, I couldn't make that one but did watch the video. Later I had been able to get one of 500(?) tickets that seemed to have been spoken for in about a minute and a half for an event at the Camden Opera House (I got 1 of about 70 still available 20 seconds after they were posted but my wife was chasing the last 6 or 7 disappearing a minute later) unfortunately it was cancelled due to the unknown whereabouts of the Lewiston shooter at that time, but I did catch her and the book at the Books-A-Million store in South Portland (Maine) on Nov 15th (again signing up as soon as the tickets were available).
It is very much worth the effort to see her events in person for all the interesting people that also attend the events (and ask really great questions).
Watching videos of the other events such as the one at the LBJ Presidential Library, and one with Al Franken, and the other great interviewers are priceless in the scope of background history and innumerable other events big and small that show the many details that fit into the much bigger picture.
The racist totalitarian brew formed around bull shit trickle down economics cum fascism and Orwellian nihilism. Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil nailed it. Rep. David Stockman from Michigan resisted, he tried. And he failed. The woodshed concept became Gov. Ronald Reagan’s con, as the son of a drunk first married to a drunk, from Hollywood Grade B filming destroyed the Republican Party with bull shit trickle down economics ... and his racist imaginary of the obese Black welfare mother in Chicago ... paired with slick racist GHWB who gleefully added murderer Willie Horton to stuff Gov. Michael Dukakis per Lee Atwater, elevating racism in GOP leadership to Fascist Cult Code Red Party Dogma returning to Civil War confederate racism - add antisemitism - aligning the Trump Queens to GOP with Putin, Viktor Orban and Arab hatreds to - add Iran’s terrorists, Hamas in GAZA and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and other radical Jew hating groups, and WWIII nihilism threatens with border security and Trump’s Queens racism .. with MTG / Trump / Elise Stefanik fascist racism ... and the whole country and the world are again facing the Mussolini fascist mix that led Germany to Hitler...tracking Henry Ford’s antisemitism and 1930s racism in America..
What will it take? Education, education, education... and the rise of unions and New Deal policies, not socialism, capitalism and Democratic politics of inclusion... reversing Trump tax cuts... and much more.
Tolerance must rise. Decency must prevail, not Trump bullying and violence.. American youth must rise to power... Chuck Grassley must go, the House must return to sanity.
Jeri Chilcutt, banned for what? Fact.. Explain exactly, please. A compliment, no? Never used FB.
Telling the truth? About fascism? Racism? President Ronald Reagan’s alcoholic first wife? His alcoholic father? Rep. Elise Stefanik, our stone cold 21st of New York congresswoman that returns no call from the devoted GOP popular appointed Republican County coroner and local undertaker?
Confusing arrogance in the third ranking House member that wants to be Trump’s VP? That’s a crime? She ...
Probably hopes DJT will croak to elevate her. She’s a MAGA election liar, a local liar, never lived on Willsboro Point. Her plywood selling daddy had a summer camp on The Point.
We will elect a dead Republican here. We are Red. And dead from the neck up here.
Coroner Jay Heald dislikes Stefanik. Is GOP. A good soul. A devoted Republican.
Being banned from Twitter is not a feat. It uses algorithms. Not intelligence. How did you manage that? Tell the truth about someone? What did tge deed? Congratulations!
I posted the rules Goebbels used to promulgate propaganda in Germany and said that repubs had been using these rules, and Trump had taken them over for use in his campaign. Both Twitter and FB flagged this comment. I appealed several times, apparently to humans at some point because I thought that a human would understand that I was not advocating Goebbel's lies. I was told that this post violated "community standards." At first for 6 days, then after consideration, permanently. Glad MSM is finally saying it out loud. Sadly, may be too late.
WW2 loomed large in my young life, especially after the death of my 19-year-old nephew in Italy. I liked Ike, was a fan of Everett Dirksen, and have been appalled by repubs since Reagan./Murdoch. Worried about a future that I will likely not live to experience.
Well, Goebbels is unfamiliar. However, fascism is not. The Nazis were unrepentant fascist. To my mind, today’s GOP feels fascist. Not Holocaust fascist, but intolerant fascist nonetheless. Trump is a Big Lie paragon of intolerance that seeds the fascist insanity and instinct in insecure whites that need to feel superior, their issues flower from suffocating ignorance, and fear, too many read a a 5th grade level if at all, their weekly newspapers are classified ad driven, void of news, so the community conscience is impaired, the mirror is cracked and cloudy.. so, our culture is unwell, and President Biden has called President Trump is a “sick ****” whack that must be banned. Joe Biden speaks what we feel. He’s dealing with the most dangerous and disgusting world scene. He’s done the job and deserves another term.
So, Jeri Chilcutt, banned for expressing views that an algorithm dislikes, keep your own counsel. You are - sadly - close to the truth when you compare Nazi fascist propaganda to stuff we see elsewhere.
We live in dangerous times. So-called social platforms are anti-social. Computers are not social. They are Orwellian and Existential and quite possibly as dangerous as the subject of your comment for which you are banned.
Red Badge of Courage.. Brave New World..
The Stranger reacted. Albert Camus got it. Beautifully.
The Plague is a masterpiece.
The Nobel comes to the novelist with truth in his fiction.
Expulsion comes to the good soul that tests the means of nihilism and arouses the algorithm.
We have enough evil today, had no need to resurrect evil from the past, but it's so much more convenient, tried and tested. And defeated, time and time again. May it be so this time.
What is confusing? I have been in fb jail for posting something from Heather. I have reported disinformation by Congressional Reps. I have reported some of the most horrendous & violent posts from the pro birth group.
Carole, I once had a FB post flagged & removed for posting a link to the Dept of Education’s Student Aid site in response to a commenter’s inaccurate statement about some student aid issue (I worked in the field for 40+ years) and wanted readers to go to “the source” for accurate information. They never did respond to my query about why my post was removed.
I know. I frequently think about deleting my account bc of their double standards. It is their platform & suggests what 1984 thought control fb will be
I guess I'm in good company Jeri as I am banned from commenting on WAPO.
Speaking of watching it, yesterday I reported Schmeekle for post the same two posts over and over. It is ridiculous to have to filter out repetitive emails which you don't have to do on the NYTimes or the WAPO.
I haven't noticed any of his posts today. Bummer if he got kicked off of here /S
Blocking trolls needs to be an option. There are plenty of dissenting opinions among those who are not blathering the talking points for our sworn enemies.
Absolutely. I don't mind ignoring a few messages a day, but he always attaches his BS to the first comments so you are forced to bypass them to read the comments worth reading.
Grassley is channeling the duplicity of Reagan (Iran hostages), as you mentioned - the Willie Horton lie by GHWB and Nixon's undermining peace to get elected (killing American soldiers).
It's been the playbook for authoritarians and oligarchs forever. Stir up the naive and angry with fabrications and twisted facts - all to gain more power and ultimately MONEY. You would think that since their situations never improve when the GOP is in power, they would wake up. But then the MAGA types pull out their bazookas of the "culture war". Pawn sacrifice all day long.
But the days are getting longer. No longer need a flashlight to take our dog out in the morning. Spring is around the corner. Looking forward to what the Earth will provide.
It's worth remembering that Chuck Grassley, IA, has been in office since 1981. He's a curious old curmudgeon. Other than having been swept in on the Supply side tide of the early Reagan years, he done nothing notable or honorable or for the good of the rest of the country that I can recall. He'll always support farm subsidies but otherwise everything is Socialism to him. I ask other readers to name one good thing he has done in his 40 years in office.
Got to say he is well thought if here. Iowans think highly of him. He visits all 99 counties on a regular basis. He replies to letters and they do not come with many of the carbon copy trash like Cruz would use.
I agree that he has nit done much otherwise, but he is evidently very upfront and personal which keeps him in office. The fact he does nothing I think is a plus here.
Anyone is better than Lyin' Ted Cruz, I'll give you that. But Grassley has seemed to be deliberately unhelpful to Obama and/or Biden, much preferring, as far as I can see, to say things guaranteed to generate Fox clicks. He seems to hate all things Federal unless it's crop support or unless there is extraordinary flooding on the Des Moines or Cedar rivers.
Not only does he support farm subsidies, he applies for them and is the recipient of the same subsidies he votes for. Plus, he's almost 90 years old. Soon they'll whell him into the Senate chambers in a hospital bed ala Strom Thurmond.
“Today in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin called the Republicans’ behavior “nihilism and performative politics.”
Oxford Dictionaryof nihilism- the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.
I would have to say that the Republican Party is actually using religion to capture their base. Evangelicals supporting the right to lifers. Members of the government using that to block promotions of military members for almost a year - one person against abortion. And that person, if put in a position of having a daughter impregnated through rape, would have it performed in a New York Minute.
It is a very dangerous situation where our forefathers recognize the importance of the separation of church from state, yet here it is coming back again lead by the most immoral leader on earth- Donald J. Trump. Backed by the most dangerous leader on earth Vladimir Putin.
But we have one thing on our side, smart intelligent women. Hopefully enough to offset the idiot ones. It is the right to choose, the right to have an abortion because of medical, rape, incest, or simply a poor decision one night. A decision she didn’t want to have to live with, at least for now. Yet a decision.
For people to lead their life through God by forcing it on others. Then let’s force the elimination of certain guns. Those horrible things are creating living human abortions every day. Protest those gun shops and gun manufactures. These are parents that wanted children, had them, and lost them to a gun. And it pains me. No parent should go through that.
That seems to be more inhuman then stopping a fetus.
I’m struggling to express a thought that is new to me this morning. It is based on my experience with middle class and wealthy branches of my family, and their living during the Great Depression, WWII, the postwar boom and so on, so we’re talking about Hoover and then FDR, WWII, the postwar boom, the second Washington (Eisenhower), and then Reagan, who aside from what Heather says quite correctly about him, failed in his initial bid to be president by being himself, so he became whoever he needed to be to get elected, setting the stage for Trump.
Middle class Americans have been co-opted by having the bulk of their retirement funds invested in stocks and bonds over which they lack the expertise or funds to manage themselves, so they have been separated from making moral decisions like those they follow for charitable and political donations. I’m talking about pensions and then IRAs. As the result, corporations are doing what they will, even though it is contrary to their beliefs, including in Democracy.
Even in my liberal church, investment parameters are not fully in line with the expressed beliefs of members and the denomination as a whole.
Do not look for ethics. Morality. Money has no conscience, no morals, no compass. The SEC is a revolving door, SDNY is schizophrenic, some people are honest, some not, Sir Rudy was a latter day Savonarola wanna be, a wife cheating liar, on the make for mayor, framed the innocent, part of the eternal cartel of Street studs and creeps, it’s all in plain view, Secretary Cyrus Vance was honest, he was unique. Hard to find among the successful.
“Greedflation” is the most under-reported economic news in years. This is largely because it’s hard to quantify. But it’s an indictment of unfettered capitalism and legions of CEOs.
It’s great that the Biden administration has accomplished so much economically for the country. But the sad reality is that so many basic needs remain obscenely expensive, causing widespread hardship.
Michael,
Republicans claim the economy is bad but ALL of the Republican men I know, and some women, have purchased giant, new, shiny pickup trucks with sticker prices more than my first home cost.
So, if things are so bad for working Republicans, why are there millions of pickup trucks sold for $72,000 each to Republican men and women?
Yep, that is how much those trucks passing you at 56 mph in a 25 mph school zone cost.
The reality is: The economy rocks, Republicans know it and Republicans have wasted millions, perhaps trillions on pickup truck trinkets they do not need.
Republicans really just want to hate. And, so, they make stuff up that allows them to do so.
Like, "The economy is bad". So, "Democrats are bad".
For a Republican, hating is the goal.
Thanks, Mike, for this explanation of the truck bonanza. I thought I had somehow missed the day when the sky opened up and trucks fell out. They are many and everywhere.
Environment be damned!
The beds of said pick' up trucks have never seen a 2x4 much less a load of mulch. But there's stupid inside.
And the stupid inside says you WILL look at me because you will hear me because I have installed LOUD exhaust pipes. But you can’t see my face because the windows are tinted very dark.
And you can't miss me because I'm also flying an American flag.
It disgusts me that the flag is now nazi signaling of righteousness. You see one on an house, you know there is stupid living there, not patriotism.
Not at my house, Jen. I fly the US Colors full time (correctly presented, properly illuminated in the dark, and replaced when worn or tattered) alongside a Ukranian Flag, or an inclusive Pride flag, or the COPS flag (concerns of police survivors; a black standard with a single blue line honoring police officers killed in the line of duty; flown during the month of May). Between the flags is an "In Our America" sign: In Our America: All People Are Equal, Love Wins, Black Lives Matter, Immigrants and Refugees Are Welcome, Disabilities Are Respected, Women Are In Charge Of Their Own Bodies, People and Planet Are Valued Over Profit, Diversity is Celebrated.
I will not fly the flag from the bed of my shiny new (now four years old) pick up truck that mostly hauls trash, yard debris, stone for more yard projects, delivers CostCo runs to friends, and hauls multiple musicians and instruments to gigs. I am a stickler for proper flag display, and absent being in a parade, flying it on my vehicle is not proper.
https://www.inouramericalovewins.org/shop
I agree that flying the flag in most cases means some wing nut R which includes our awful neighbor across the street. The problem with the flag has been around a long time. After 9/11, the newspaper put in a flag you could put in your window which we did. Our surrogate daughter wanted to complain about it, but we told her why it was there.
There are many thousands of Americans who display the American flag who want nothing to do with Trump or the republicans. We have one, right next to our Black Lives Matter sign.
We have a few of those around here. One of the loudest is a motorcycle and he has to shift constantly to make the most noise. Our dog also hates this and we try to explain that it's just the a.hole.
And while much bigger, the beds are much smaller than you remember as a kid - can't buy a pick-up that can pick-up a load.
Nicely put. Totally stupid and a cult member for death star.
These days those Republican Tricked Out Gas Guzzlers actually cost $85k to $90k out the door. Greedflation.
Some money is saved by using the "turn signal delete option", also commonly used by Cadillac and Lincoln buyers.
🤣🤣🤣
I just say they forgot the blinker fluid.
Gotta remember that one! Thanks Ally!
Then we get complaints about the price of groceries. Republicans are too stupid to recognize climate change and think groceries are “grown” in the grocery store. Big Ag isn’t going to tell them otherwise as long as they can keep selling greasy snack “foods.”
Nailed it. The pecking order, somebody to look down on. What if we couldn’t identify any “lessers?” Our egos would crash and burn. Think about it. What if we really had to assume that any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are. It would turn our world upside down. In fact, just giving some “lessers” a shot at a chance is more than most fancy pickup owners can abide. We have, not only the rich, but the newly affluent (or majorly in debt) “deserving” ready to stomp into the muck, those with their noses pressed to the glass for a chance to pluck our chickens, and labor in our behalf. Sort of what our ancestors did. Except for chump. His ancestors were grifters, mob bosses, military deserters, and pimps. Skills they passed down to any greedy bastard without a conscience.
"...any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are." Jeri, this is the crux of the Circle of Life we strive and strive to practice. It is balance, it is how we survived here for eons before the "western" ways swept it aside. You have hit it smack on the head. If we can only get us all on that path, we will be able to light the Eighth Fire.
It is also the thought that strikes fear into the hearts of those who have been able to ascend one rung up on the ladder. What happened to "there but for the grace of God go I."
Oh, it's been replaced with "I'm rich because GOD MADE ME rich (and didn't care that I got that way by exploiting the weakness and folly of others)."
Bad omen
Thanks for the Eighth Fire reference, Elaine. (From Up North, married to Ojibwe). wehttps://arpbooks.org/product/lighting-the-eighth-fire/
That's interesting, we are probably related. BMIC here.
You could be related! During the time I was consulting with the Bay Mills nurse, she was excited about a big tribal reunion with their Canadian Ojibwe relatives. But, sadly, when the large Canadian group got to the bridge, the U.S. Customs wouldn't let them through. Since then, when my husband goes to Canada, he just shows his "Indian card" and the customs officer at either border can't even ask him a question much less delay or deny his passage. You probably know more about this than I do. Just thrilled for Native power.
He is Mississauga First Nation (where his mother was born). In my public health nursing and advocacy career I worked with the Bay Mills clinical director, as well as with tribes here in Northern Michigan.
Billionaire welfare is an approved Christian value.
Just what Jesus advocated. Maybe when Paul started spreading the word, things got garbled beyond recognition.
Ya think? As in Biden's description of tfg that's just come to light (to my glee), the former tax collector was IMO a "sick f---."
Yup.
Jeri, that’s a bazinga.
Don't know what that is, but thanks, I think...
Good for you, Jeri, for your notes on the "pecking order."
If schools continue to be ruled by and for standardized tests, of course there's always "somebody to look down on," because life as only sets of numbers and categories has no room for seeing how "any creature that we came across was as deserving, as valuable to the community as we are."
To see and value others as individuals requires some skill, training, readiness to see and value others, life, as you do. Requires essay writing, discussion, humanities.
When the people of Finland determined to have the best schools in the world, they made it policy to hire only the best as teachers and, at the same time, to trust the teachers to decide everything themselves -- books, lesson plans, everything.
And the first thing the teachers decided? To abandon most all standardized testing in all schools.
Also, most teachers in the now-world's-best public schools assign no homework, as that really exists only to keep youth enslaved testing (and thus to the billionaires and corporations which ever reduce life to numbers and categories only).
Thank you. I know they don't teach empathy in school, but just being in the midst of so many others taught me that people come in all stripes. It most assuredly starts with parents. It doesn't take a genius to see that some struggle so much more than others. I always thought that a helping hand was much preferable to a crippling kick for most. Sorting, rating, and ranking have their places, but are so defining to an unnecessary extent. People are complicated. In fact, I used to get sort of upset at Sesame Street when my young child watched the song "This one thing is not like the other, one of these things does not belong." Useful and educational, but I think people generalize the concept to too many aspects of humanity. Sorry for another rant.
Rant on, dear Jeri.
Love how you draw from life experience, and from our culture.
Thank you Phil. Just old, seen too much, and fed up. Hard to believe how other "elders" have been bamboozled by non-stop bull schitt, from the ugliest specimens of humanity.
So, so accurate!! Thanks ❣️
To own those $72,000 trucks they borrowed big time, along with huge mortgages and large credit card balances. The redneck life ain't cheap and if Republicans gain control and the economy crashes, these people are going to be in deep trouble financially. Of course, their deep seated resentment of Democrats will be who they blame for their financial woes. These boom and bust cycles, largely created by the wealthy robber barons, will continue until We The People force politicians to reign in "greedflation" and pass stringent campaign finance laws.
And enforce anti-trust laws already on the books.
Oh, and my pet peeve - trucks in today's world are mostly made for show, and are priced out of the working woman's price range!
My truck is so high off the ground I can't reach into the cab or bed without a step stool, and its still difficult even then. Forget my dog being able to jump in either.
I drive a 20 yr old 4x4 Tacoma 4 cyl (cheaper to work on) w/ just over 200,000 miles on it. I’d consider a new truck (I can only afford one vehicle & I haul yard goods like chips & mulch, etc., so need a truck), but they are awful! Full of widgets & do-dads & sometimes a computer screen in the dashboard—ha, what could possibly go wrong w/ that (not talking ‘bout back-up screens). Some of the trucks have hoods that are as high as my shoulder & have been shown to be more deadly to pedestrians, bicyclists & smaller vehicles. Other countries still make and sell small vehicles, but here in the USA we super-size everything. I liken the current truck size trend to the sci-fi movie Transformers (ginormous) characters. A pet peeve of mine….OK, end of rant!
Our Chevy suburban has 546,000 miles. The brake lines rusted off 🤣 so we had to buy a newer vehicle. We bought a Toyota Tundra. We have 10 acres, we need a truck. I'm a techtard, so figuring out how the operations work...eek. I don't touch anything. My husband loves to drive that goodness. I hate it. I've hit 11 deer and I've had too many accidents. I have given myself PTSD from my own driving.
I checked out some used trucks, but none had manual transmissions (dislike automatics for mountain driving—they never shift when I prefer to!) & all had electric windows. Where I live, driving alongside a river is common & one “oops” can land you in the drink….so I prefer manual hand-crank windows if I needed to escape the cab….don’t think they even make them anymore. I prefer knobs & buttons because muscle memory can guide turning on/off things (heat/cooling/radio) w/o having to take eyes off the road. My only upgrade from my first truck (a 1990) to my 2003, was getting air conditioning, something I do use.
I learned how to drive with old pickup truck with a manual transmission. I couldn't reach the pedals very well and hit a couple mailboxes.
I got another truck a few years ago - it does have power windows but nothing else except the basics. 8' truck bed, because like you, I haul and don't need anything to distract me. Yes, a backup alarm or camera is a must
Where did you get an 8 ft bed?
Ram has what they call a 1500 Classic Tradesman truck - standard cab with 8' bed. I don't know of anyone else that offers that anymore AND one more thing - that's hard to find that this truck has, no carpet and vinyl (instead of cloth) seats. I want to be able to open both doors and hose it out!
I only watch old Brit dramas and I laugh when the police crusie down the streets in little mini cars! My town has a bunch of scary looking retired military vehicles they haul out during a storm. I feel like I am watching playground activities when the coppers drive them.
Also ranting here in northern Michigan.
Henry Ford would be proud though.
I used to drive a ‘96 Silverado C1500. Loved that truck. She finally died 4 years ago. I miss her to this day. My son took me to the car dealership, because, retired or not, I needed a vehicle. The salesman asked if I wanted another truck. My son looked at me and said, “Do you want something you have to climb into, or something you can fall into? I’m getting older and shorter. Easy decision. I got a Toyota sedan.
I miss that truck to this day. When my grandson was a toddler, he got to sit in the front in his carseat and see the road out the windshield. He would look at me and just laugh. Good times.
I really wish the manufacturers would bring back the small trucks of the 1990s. My understanding is they quit making them because of the EPA emission standards. I guess the regulations for the heavier trucks are easier to meet? And they make more money on the big trucks. So frustrating.
My husband still drives his 1990 Mazda pick up. It is low to the ground and has a large bed. Everyone I know wants a small pickup and you just can't find them.
My mom's circa 1980 Ford F250 is still going strong. She sold it many years ago to a friend when she got she got out of the horse business. My daughter rides with the woman who owns it. She is driving it this weekend. I know my mother (who died at age 94 in 2020) is smiling.
Mike S. Perfect. I cringe thinking how many of these truck owners have no interest in the environment.
...as exemplified by the trucks driving across beaches -- where shorebirds and turtles nest -- in places like Texas and North Carolina.
I live where everyone has a truck. What I notice is all the cars lining up @ drive thru coffee places & casino parking lots
Carole that drives me nuts.
Oh, those sexy huge boxy trucks with so much space that is never used. They are marvels of engineering and marketing genius. In Texas, more young women would have given me the time of day had I been driving a Ford F150 instead of a Mazda.
When looking for a vehicle in 2019 just before the pandemic, I sat in a souped up Ford that looked like a Transformer waiting to unfold into action. Seriously, I was grinning ear to ear just sitting in it, in the showroom. And then I thought about my senior citizen's spatial perception, my gasoline budget, the too-small 2-car garage in Texas, and oh yes, what do I really need, and decided to keep my 2007 Toyota (230,000 miles). But it was fun for a few minutes.
Mike, thanks for confirming my suspicion that those huge shiny pickups that tailgate me at high speeds are Republicans. The ownership of these vehicles is one demonstration of their need for power; their reckless driving is a symptom of their unceasing anger. As someone who has been rear-ended four times and has the injuries to prove it, I have a hard time not focusing on the rear view mirror when it fills with the grille of yet another Republican vehicle!
I agree Mike, especially about the trucks which tear around on city streets like they are on the freeway. Sometimes they have jacked up wheels. I not only see bad driving, but I also see low gas mileage. There is a local ad from a store in Portland which specializes on all the silly and expensive accouterments for such vehicles. And often they have big flags flying as well. We had a phone meeting with our financial advisor yesterday who told us that the economy is doing fine and he explained some about how the Federal Reserve works. He had some very apt and funny metaphors about how they go about things.
Not to mention those pretty new House pins they're all sporting. Essential business only for our House Republicans!
Mike, remember the movie “Time Machine”? I was little when it came out. I had nightmares about the Morlocks for years. Much later there was a trailer for a movie I refused to go see with a little girl staring into a fuzzy tv screen, “They’re baacck”
It seems that Horror Stories fascinate us cuz we thought we were safe cuz they’re real. We are mistaken about the reality part
“They’re Baacck”
Florida’s greedflation is unfettered with a Governor who is MIA and has taken political contributions from many corporations in order to fill political coffers. People are being driven out of their homes and communities because of it. It’s corruption on every level.
Now DeSantis says he’s sending a battalion of the Florida National Guard to Texas, as well as the State Guard to assist in Abbott's razor wire border barrier antics. Wasting more money, manpower, and resources on something that could be resolved much more diplomatically, sanely, and effectively than this Republican penchant for “nihilism and performative politics" as Jennifer Rubin of the Washingtion Post said today.
Isn't he breaking some federal law? One more day I feel so glad I escaped from Florida.
Me too!
Yes, SCOTUS confirmed that only feds have jurisdiction over borders. So naturally Abbott has doubled down and says if feds cut the razor wire, he’ll just have it replaced.
Admit it, DeSatan, you are just the runner up to best hater. The Abbott trio has a lock on the title.
Remember when the Covid-19 vaccinations were first released and DeSantis offered them to his rich donors if they contributed to his campaign. Quid pro quo much?
EXACTLY!!
📣 Let’s make sure struggling Floridians are aware of our free-spending governor.
168 MILLION !!!
“The failed campaign and expansive political operation aiming to make Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the Republican nominee for the White House cost $168 million, according to filings reported to the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday.”
https://apnews.com/article/desantis-2024-trump-election-campaign-25c1c062f2646020cce743acf42233a7
Unfortunately, the campaign funds were not from tax dollars, Floridians will only get their heads out of the sand when an income tax is needed for the state to survive!
Yes. We once had a financial consultant whose retirement plan was built on moving to Florida. We left her.
Did he get to keep the White Boots…asking for a friend …
“TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—Faced with mounting campaign bills and dwindling donations, Ron DeSantis revealed on Friday that he had been forced to sell his beloved white go-go boots.
The Florida governor appeared anguished by the loss of his go-go boots, which aides disclosed were by far the most cherished footwear he owned.
DeSantis said that he had tried to make cuts elsewhere to preserve his ownership of the boots but that, “in the end, the numbers didn’t add up.”
“In a perfect world, I could run for President and own white go-go boots,” he said. “Sadly, we do not live in that world.” 😂😂
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/cash-strapped-desantis-forced-to-sell-beloved-go-go-boots
Just think $168 million is gone, it has been wasted for nothing which is what desatan is, a nothing, and those donors don’t have that money to pass around anymore, that’s a big chunk of change that won’t be put to more nefarious uses. 😎
Did all that money maybe employ people who suppled services? Got to find some bright side to this nonsense.
“Greedflation” is also the product of a less-competitive marketplace. In a competitive marketplace, competitors within an industry force each other to hold down prices; if they don’t, they’ll lose marketshare to companies which do. In the old, disproven free-market model, markets unfettered by govt remain free and competitive, but in fact, they are taken over by a few dominant corporations, and competition disappears.
Just like the MSM Stanley.
The first year my company was in business CSC tried to bankrupt us by telling four of our clients in Nebraska that we weren't allowed to work on their computer systems. These four companies were all Fortune 100 companies headquartered in Nebraska. If we chose to fight them it would have quickly bankrupted us. (One of TFFG's favorite tactics).
Our brilliant attorney went to the NE AG's office and the AG wrote a letter to CSC telling them that they needed to rescind the letter ASAP since they were committing tortious interference with 4 large NE companies and our fledgling company.
Our rates were about half of what CSC was charging these companies and we were an easy mark. The day after the letter was delivered to CSC in Austin, TX their general counsel was in our attorney's office in Lincoln, NE. They wrote the letter to the 4 companies and gave us permission to work on their systems anywhere in the world.
We have no way of knowing how many companies and people TFFG has forced out of business with his greedflation and by being a "sick MF" as Biden called him yesterday, but it is likely a large number.
We were lucky that CSC wrote the letter to the Nebraska corporations and that our attorney had a friend that just happened to be the AG otherwise, we would have been finished.
This is one of the reasons why so many companies end up being monopolies charging whatever they can. The pharmaceutical industry has likely killed thousands of people with their overpriced drugs and yet Congress and the White House have done little until now.
Of course, another path to becoming a monopoly is to buy up your competition and jack up the prices on their products or to pull them off the market and jack up the prices on their own products.
Another way is to buy them and sell of the assets. Just ask Mitt Romney for more detailed explanation. Blue collar people lose their jobs and often their earned retirement.
I was thinking about Mitt Romney when I wrote my comment. How many people lost their jobs so that he could get wealthy?
And then Trump exploits their anger and gets re-elected.
Thank you Gary for sharing your story. It is an important one, that I know the American public never hears. But, one we all should hear.
I’m grateful to Biden for returning to pre-Reagan anti-trust, anti-monopoly policies. Example: rejecting Jet Blue-Spirit merger.
I hope to see more of this practice in the future.
The de-regulation of the airline industry has been a boon for about 5 airlines, and many a shareholder. And a horror for everyone else, unless you have your own jet.
So many good airlines swallowed up by the few that remain.
Stanley, I am ecstatic about the antimonopoly positions of the Biden Administration. But it must certainly increase the support of those monopolies for TFG….
Marge, what’s TFG?
Well, it started out as The Former Guy, to avoid using Trump’s name. Some people use the F to symbolize a little more dislike. And there are those who combine those two and use TFFG.
So true, the key elements of a true capitalist economy are missing such a competition for customer dollars! Exxon Mobil worst merger decision by federal regulators!
Yes, especially greedy real estate industry and landlords. Housing prices are a nightmare. I also think property taxes need to be reviewed as they’ve gone up so much that people are forced out of their homes and neighborhoods.
Let’s also not forget employers continuing to underpay employees. It should be a crime to not at least compensate for rising cost of living. This is an ongoing disaster, especially for Generation X who are now in their 40’s - 50’s and who will start to reach retirement age in 15-20 years and the majority won’t be able to afford it.
Employers have mostly stopped pensions in favor of 401k, but many couldn’t contribute if they didn’t earn enough to cover their expenses. I’ve seen discussions on social media that many people are looking for an “exit strategy” for when they can no longer work but can’t afford to retire. I have no doubt this is not a new problem, but it’s largely been ignored by mainstream media and society, but I feel certain that the numbers of people who will actually do this is going to be alarming.
If younger generations think they’re are being held back by student loans, wait until they are suddenly having to support their non-employable family members who have under-budgeted for retirement or who have no retirement funds.
Thanks for mentioning property taxes; mine are now over $10K and still climbing. I attribute this partly due to living in a city with many educational, religious and nonprofit institutions that pay no property taxes. But I suspect there is also declining interest by state legislators in Local Government Assistance - which used to provide funds for infrastructure to poorer cities. State income tax has been exceeding state budgets but politicians would rather give the excess to tax refunds and pet projects rather than LGA.
Just like freezing/cutting funding for poor people, it’s popular to treat poor cities the same way. So property taxes soar while streets are so bad that tires and axels are regularly destroyed.
The middle class is being bled dry because of wealth inequality and unfair tax cuts to the wealthy & corporations. If they paid their fair share, they could reduce property taxes accordingly.,
Yep. Absolutely. Property taxes are an outrageous way to support city services. Not to mention that increases in property values bear no relationship to the income of the homeowner. Retirees are particularly vulnerable to being taxed out of their homes.
This!
While you don’t want to chastise Wall Street too hard, corporations are investing $100’s of billions in America under President Biden, we also need to remember that lots of us have our 401K’s in the market, it is necessary to point out to the voters that prices not coming down is the fault of corporations. I don’t think there is anything the government can do in this regard.
Nikki Haley made a lot of noise in the lead up to the New Hampshire primary about a competency test for anyone over 75. She singled out the President in the ads. Besides trump, Grassley is the poster child for a competency test.
Can we question a Grassley voter as to why the vote for Chuck.
Probably only because Grassley has the R after his name. Habit and name recognition rule too many people's voting choices. And hey, Chuckie has been a Senator for 43 flippin' years...that is 8--count 'em EIGHT!!!--terms as Senator.
I don't particularly give a damn about his age, but 8 terms as Senator is more than time and far past to step aside and give the next generation a stab at helping run the government FOR THE PEOPLE (well, if Repubbies ever do remember how to actually govern, of course). The doddering old white guy has long been fossilized in his patriarchal, partisan thinking.
"so many basic needs remain obsceinely epensive.." Please give some concrete examples.
Child care, health care, education...need more?
OK. The cost of "living" in today's world. Add up internet (and cable if you still have it) cell service, electricity, water, heating and cooling, car repair - that's just to function.
And if you have a kid or two, they could stay home and wear rags - or they would participate in sports, grow out of their clothes in days, maybe have some special healthcare needs...
Oh, there I go again, rattling on about the healthcare that costs us twice as much as other developed nations - healthcare if you can find a doctor who isn't booked out for several months. We are being robbed. But we are "exceptional Americans".
https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/suffering-for-profits
Fortunately I have very good healthcare insurance, however that company just reimbursed my retina specialist practice the Full amount billed over $10k!! The appointment took less than a cumulative hour of the practice time! The lions share of the cost is the medicine injected into my eye to hold macula degeneration in check.
I am pleased for you. And I wish you well with your eyesight.
I have a question that can't be answered. Who was the evil person who originally said that for purposes of health insurance - your eyes, your ears and your teeth were not part of our bodies - not part of our "health". It occurs to me that if I can't chew, my health will suffer. If I can't hear, I would have trouble finding the job I need. If I can't see...
Who devised this diabolical device?
The American Medical Association, 1930's.
Suspect better lobbyists.
Answer to your good Q, Bill, may be in biology as molecular only.
Most U.S. schools stress molecular models only in biology for the same reason most K-12 lets standardized testing order all teaching priorities.
See, Bill, it's a matter of seeing life as numbers and categories only.
I'm guessing the health and insurance industries leave out eyes, ears, and teeth as parts of the body because those things aren't as treatable by pills as are the other parts of the body. And pills are key to the molecular view of life, where everything -- everything -- is incremental. Just add more bits of this, bits of that -- more molecules, more pills, more profits for Big Pharma.
Standardized testing just doubles down on that view of life.
Makes sense. You aren't suggesting that profits have been more important than the health of our citizens...oh no, say it isn't so!
Check out my latest substack to see how I feel. In a word? Outraged.
NO SH-T! I ask this question repeatedly!
I hope the injection works Louis!
I receive injections hopefully every 8 weeks in my eyes to the tune of 2,500 each cycle. Without these injections I blink non stop due a neuro problem known as blepharaspsams. I am currently on a 12 week cycle and fighting with insurance companies for injections every eight weeks. Otherwise I am losing about 4 months a year blinking!
I need to keep working to afford the real estate taxs that skyrocketed!
Best of luck Louis!
Working two minimum wage jobs keeps you poor.
Yes, Bill! Add housing to the list. The numbers of homeless families has increased in lockstep with rent increases, while TANF (previously AFDC) did not increase by a dime in 25 years.
BTW, that was possible because President Clinton’s “Welfare Reform” converted what had been an entitlement income supplement for the poorest families into a block grant program. This allowed states to spend the federal money on drug testing and parenting classes rather than cash that paid the rent.
Our electricity ⚡️ bill went up 18% this month.
Randall, did your price per killowatt hour increase 18% or did your power usage increase due to the winter weather thus increasing your monthly bill? We live in "the middle of nowhere" in the rural northern Arkansas Ozarks. Our power is provided by a member-owned rural electric cooperative. We pay 10 cents per killowatt hour for the first 500 hours used and then 8 cents per kilowatt for the usage above that. Because those who are served by the co-op are also the owners we do not pay inflated rates to provide profits to shareholders.
Damn, cheating those greedy bastards, good for you. Ditch them and do it yourself. Good for you.
The winter rates on electricity here in Connecticut are tough. My electric bills thru November were under $60. In December, it was $95. In January, $135. I keep my thermostat at 62°.
We live in a condo in MA. Gas heat.
January electric bill just landed $332
July was $532
Wow. Just ... wow.
Between this, a big bump in RE taxes (cost of school system health insurance and SPED) and our auto insurance hike, we are getting priced out of life.
WHAT! I live in MA and my utilities are kinda affordable.
I live in CT too and I paid under $70. Use less pay less.
By the way, I like your avatar photo!
You did see the part where the thermostat is set at 62, right? It's an apartment with all electric heat. You may have a different supplier, too. Good for you! I never switched from Eversource. :-)
I see. Electric heating I guess costs more. And thank you on my avatar and yours, too.
My bill didn't change much but someone in this area received a bill from PG&E for >$950 for one month! The PUC approvef that increase!
So do we need a PUD or something other than PGE?
Randall, here in far northern CA I’m awaiting my PG&E bill…an PUC approved rate hike (what were they thinking?) is slated to go into effect w/ hefty increases expected. PG&E for all their profits have not been good caretakers of their infrastructure & have been held liable for deadly & costly BIG fires. I, too, would like to see our utilities be publicly held, with hawk-eyed oversight. Sure, the management and on-the-ground workers should be paid decently and have decent benefits as well (a “good” job), but w/o the massive profits going to shareholders instead.
Perhaps Finland should govern the US. Not joking.
That's a winter usage rate. Not inflation. Jeez. I don't pay anything for electric where I live. By far the highest expense is food since I don't cook much and delivery is expensive.
I do cook and a price shop. One of my healthy choices is making my own black bean burgers using dry beans and brown rice including lots of fixings. My patties cost per unit about .13 cents per burger. Opps, inflation must have sent the price sky high to .15 cents per burger.
I do same! Much tastier too!
OK, Bill, now I’m hungry!
For you, I will only charge $5.00 a burger. Because you’re hungry. As a tire salesman once responded to my gasp when he told me their tire prices, “…You know I gotta eat steak.” I didn’t buy his tires. Wrong thing to say to a guy who loves cows.
Housing costs, especially for rental housing. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, rent increases have been outpacing income gains. "Median rents have risen nearly continuously since 2001 in inflation-adjusted terms and are 21 percent higher as of 2022. Meanwhile, renters’ incomes have risen just 2 percent during the same period." The number of cost-burdened renters in the U.S. - households that pay more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities - is at a record high 22.4 million. More than 12 million renter households have housing costs that consume more than HALF of their income. Needless to say, this leaves little left over for food, transportation, and other basic needs.
Butter at 14 dollars per pound.
I live in the most expensive city in the US, San Francisco, CA and I have NEVER paid $14 for butter. I buy the most expensive brand and just paid $6.69 for a pound of Danish Creamery my preferred brand.
Nicole, I LOVE Danish Creamery!
(Sorry, off topic. :)
I stock up when it's in stock. It's the best and the only one that I've found that wraps each quarter in paper backed foil. Keeps it fresh! Never, ever paid $14.00 for Horizon brand organic. 😕
Me either.
In fairness, Nicole, the price of groceries in San Francisco has relatively little to do with why San Francisco is the most expensive city in the US.
Sad to say, the renowned Fairway market in NYC has been charging $14 for Horizon organic butter and about $7 for non-organic. Not sure why. Probably a northeast problem.
Average Price: Butter, Stick (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average (APU0000FS1101)
Dec 2023: 4.505
Nov 2023: 4.520
Oct 2023: 4.550
Sep 2023: 4.407
Aug 2023: 4.411
Good "concrete examples", Janet!
Go vegan, ditch dairy!
Week of January 22-> 2024
CME GROUP CASH MARKETS (1/26)
BUTTER: Grade AA closed at $2.7600. The weekly average for Grade AA is $2.6230 (+0.0586).
CHEESE: Barrels closed at $1.4700 and 40# blocks at $1.5375. The weekly average for barrels is $1.4590 (-0.0023) and blocks, $1.5120 (+0.0295).
NONFAT DRY MILK: Grade A closed at $1.2200. The weekly average for Grade A is $1.1960 (+0.0091).
DRY WHEY: Extra grade dry whey closed at $0.4425. The weekly average for dry whey is $0.4380 (+0.0249).
BUTTER HIGHLIGHTS: Retail demand is steady, aside from winter storm activity negatively impacting demand in some northwestern parts of the West region. Food service demand across the nation is mixed. Harsh snow and ice storms in the West have lightened buyer activity in the region. Food service demand is reported as increasing slightly in the East region. Bulk butter demand is steady. Cream loads are readily available. However, butter production is mixed throughout the country. Some butter makers in the Pacific Northwest have contended with power losses and transportation difficulties from harsh winter weather. Some stakeholders note tight unsalted butter availability. That said, current salted and unsalted inventory levels are sufficient to meet most immediate buyer needs. Bulk butter overages range from 1 to 8 cents above market, across all regions.
Where? My organic butter costs <$4.00 per pound.
Agreed. I have been paying $3.99/pound for their butter at Trader Joe's for years. Organic butter at Wegmans is $4,29/lb. That price hasn't fluctuated in probably 10 years.
I just paid $4 for a pound of butter.
Maybe you should shop somewhere else?
Or are you exaggerating?
It is a fact of life in NYC.
Lucerne European Style Salted Butter - 8 Oz
($0.46 / Ounce)
4.786 Reviews
Your Price$3.69 each/ each at a QFC store
Horizon organic butter is still $14 where I shop. Dairy prices in general inflated far more than needed to maintain normal cut-throat, minimally taxed profits.
Horizon butter is $8.08 a pound here in San Francisco. I don't know where you shop or where you live but I call BS on your claim. I personally don't like that brand which is why I pay $6.69 a pound. Again the MOST expensive city in the entire US. As for inflation? It has been documented to be under control and since I live in the most expensive city, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true. You are conflating and that is not useful.
$7.57 at my local Walmart! Just checked.
Why 'call BS' on my claim? Give me a little credit; why would I lie to you? Fairway market in NYC has been charging $14 a pound for Horizon organic butter for over a year. Not sure why. Prices might be lower now; I've been buying other brands.
Sadly, the proportion of that $14 that goes to the dairy farmer is minimal.
You are probably right.
Clover unsalted butter is on sale at Lunardi's just outside San Francisco (San Bruno) for 6.69 a lb. Usually 9.99. I love Clover because it is locally owned. Never have I see any brand at 14.00.
Things are different in NYC.
Who are you kidding? And what fool would buy it. Use your head. Or are you just trolling?
Not kidding. Fairway market, among others in NYC. have been charging$14 a pound for Horizon organic butter. Of course I've been buying other brands, non-organic. And by the way, Linda, think twice before calling someone a troll or a fool.
Diapers
https://otherwords.org/its-not-inflation-were-just-getting-ripped-off-heres-proof/
I'm glad my grandson is finally potty trained. We bought a lot of diapers. I'm pissed off about garbage bags. Hefty and Glad bags are such crap. I was filing a bag with paper and it ripped. Paper? So I took a picture and sent a lovely email to these two companies. There answer is to buy their more expensive bags...$11.36 for a box of 20.
Go to Costco.
I used to when the kids were around. Now, it's just too much stuff. I'll never use it all. I'm trying to use and buy less products.
Washed all my own diapers with 4 kids (1 came after my tubes were tied).
Housing and medical care.
Can Trump and MAGA reduce them?
Looooong past time for Windfall Taxes. Record profits = we are getting gouged.
Feb 1 (Reuters) - Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab reported a $28 billion profit for 2023 on Thursday after beating fourth quarter earnings forecasts on strong liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading, allowing the oil giant to increase its dividend and extend share repurchases.
Just one example. Do we exist solely to help companies have huge profits? Why do we allow this? Why do we allow massive wealth for a few and hard capitalism for the rest of us?
Republican majorities in Congress and unchecked campaign contributions (bribery to a certain degree) are the biggest reasons. And there’s a reluctance among Democrats as well to mess with “free enterprise,” which is bizarrely worshipped like a god.
Today's Letter states, 'President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and the Democrats embraced the idea that using the government to support ordinary Americans—those on the “demand” side of the economy—would nurture strong economic growth. Republicans have insisted since the 1980s that the way to expand the economy is the opposite: to invest in the “supply side,” investors who use their capital to build businesses. '
The proof is in the pudding:
'Labor market grew 353,000 in January, soaring past expectations
The unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent.' (WAPO, excerpts)
By Lauren Kaori Gurley, Updated February 2, 2024 at 8:39 a.m. EST
'The unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent.'
'The gains were roughly double economists predictions of 177,000 reinforcing that the economy remains firmly out of recession territory with the labor market propelling the economy forward, despite some high-profile layoffs at technology and media companies.'
'Robust consumer spending has allowed employers to hire at a rate that’s fast enough to keep up with population growth and wages continue to outpace inflation, boosting workers’ spending power.'
The picture of a U.S. economy that has defied recession predictions has also been bolstered by stronger than anticipated GDP growth in the final quarter of 2023. A hardy labor market and rising wages have allowed households to spend liberally, fueling a resilient economy.
'Payrolls swelled across a variety of industries, after months of job growth concentrated in a few industries that aren’t sensitive to interest rate hikes. Professional and business services added 74,000 jobs in January, soaring past the sluggish average monthly gain of 14,000 jobs in 2023. Fueled by a rapidly aging baby boomer population, health care added 70,000 jobs, with the strongest gains in ambulatory health care, hospitals and nursing homes.'
'Retail gained 45,000 new jobs mostly at general merchandise retailers and manufacturing added 23,000 jobs though both industries have shown little overall change since early 2023. Government added 36,000 new roles, mostly in federal and local government, as wages have risen enough to keep up with the private sector.'
''Average hourly wage growth accelerated sharply in January, rising by 0.6 percent, to $34.55. Over the past 12 months, hourly wages have risen by 4.5 percent, beating inflation and boosting workers’ spending power. Federal Reserve policymakers are closely watching wages, hoping to see more moderated wage growth as a sign that inflation is under control.'
'President Biden, headed into an election year, has received a political boost from strong jobs creation and more than two years of unemployment below four percent, a stretch last seen in the 1960s, despite much criticism about rising prices throughout the economy.'
“In this low-unemployment environment, most of the laid-off workers will likely manage to find new jobs fairly quickly,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “While some individual workers may struggle to find comparable work, the layoffs are unlikely to have an effect in the aggregate.”
'The labor market has been buoyed recently by a few booming industries that are less reactive to high interest rates: health care, government, and leisure and hospitality. Last year the public sector, which includes education, finally caught up with its pre-pandemic employment levels, after struggling for years with an understaffing crisis. That has been chalked up to stagnant wages and high rates of burnout. But more robust pay and benefits packages and streamlined hiring processes have recently made these jobs more attractive to workers.' (WAPO)
Thanks Fern!
One thing I have been noticing from living in Germany is that while people for the most part earn less, and they have some higher costs, although housing and food are much lower here, is that people typically have insurance for almost everything that they can do in life. Health and long term care insurance are a package deal. Personal liability insurance of millions, and legal insurance, which are more reasonable in fees than in the USA are generally purchased. So, fewer catastrophic things can happen because it is covered by your insurance. A friend, who is a teacher is burned out. She has been off this school year and is being paid because she is written off as sick. There is personal work insurance for getting sick at work and not being able to work. Right now she is spending a few weeks in a spa. Now, American teachers could use this, because burnout is a big thing. Instead of the teachers and students suffering, no one has to. The insurance companies make money off of the young not using these services so often, and then after people have paid in a long time they use them. Still, it means less catatstrophe, even if the economy is not growing as much. Still, the farmers are right to be concerned with their bottom line, although all of the farmers in our family here in Germany live quite well. This is with hard work and being able to hire Romanians to work for them during harvest time. Food is subsidized here, but differently than in the US. I appreciate going to the grocery store and having much lower bills. Still, I also live in the US, and I am glad that Biden and the Dems are trying to get the average citizen the kind of supports that are here in Germany where instead of tax credits people can get 292 € a month for each child as direct support. Also, moms and dads get longer time off from work paid, and the requirement to have their jobs held. I know there are European countries that have even more supports, but the goal is for the USA to get there too. Biden is the one to take us there.
Michael ..they have quantified greedflation, by comparing previous years percentage of profit to current year...and the conclusion was that greed was a significant driver (supply chain issues were not the bigger party in the inflation equation...but it's all we heard from the media) of last year's inflation. So back to your point...why hasn't it been a bigger story?
I hadn't see reporting of this study, which may be what you're referring to. It's damning. The CEO of Walmart said prices may start dropping soon. Color me skeptical.
As why it hasn't been a bigger story? I don't know.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biggest-study-greedflation-yet-looked-112722227.html
Greed flatiron replaces price gouging! Unfortunately, those most vulnerable citizens rarely if ever reap the benefits of the dividends paid by these price gouging companies!
The flip side of that is described in the Heritage Project 2025. They are bringing Milton Friedman back from the grave.
😱😱😱🤯😡
Mike
Companies are making huge profits at the expense of our economy!
I agree. Greed is a kind of addiction and most of us have been convinced that more stuff and distractions will make us feel safe and secure. Not true. Pres. Regan led the way to a sick culture that I hope we are easing out of. Biden is leading the way not only with his policies, but with his genuine decency as a human being. I really don't think there would have been a pres. trump without the path Regan set us on. And hopefully, just as a drug or alcohol addict needs to hit a painful "bottom" to turn their life around, trump was our bottom. For millions of us, he certainly was.
Money worshipping of the worst kind.
It is so important to keep calling these MAGA R’s out on a daily basis. The ancient Grassley…I wonder if he really knew that he was thinking out loud. The border issue was so close to being a done deal until their lord and savior piped in. I view Mike Johnson as a loyal puppy to Leonard Leo and to Trump/Putin. So irritating!
Hoping Jack Smith goes to the 11th Circuit and asks that Cannon be removed so that his trial can proceed before November. We need a nice Blue clean sweep.
I just looked it up - Grassley is 90. NINETY. Oh, but Biden is too old. Boo fricken hoo.
I don’t care that Grassley is ninety. I honestly don’t care about his age. But to reveal that he would deny families the child tax credit because he wants a rich tax-cut secured, says everything about his infamy. And “Family Values”!
I don't really care that he's 90, either. My mom is 93, but I would not want her making decisions about millions of people's lives, and I don't think she would either.
He has denied families for decades. Sadly not just his state.
And he is definitely not alone in that age bracket!!!
Marlene, he is one of my senators. I wrote him yesterday and asked bluntly, what is wrong with you? I also made sure that he knew that the reoubs are being cheered for on Russian TV. They love the obstruction the repubs are doing. Don't know if it will make a difference, but I do know he dud not appreciate being told he was practicing fascism.
I have given up writing to Grassley. I criticized him for not allowing Garland a chance at becoming a justice, and he never responded. I have written about other things and I get GOP talking points. I guess if you feel like your words have no effect, it's just a useless effort or a way to vent.
I have read the offices of the clowns have to record all our calls and letters. Whether or not this is true, who knows. To what end though? - like you said.
Okay, then inundate his office with phone calls! See my comment to Rickey above.
Why does he care about getting reelected? He'll be like 94 when he runs for reelection?
At least Tom Harkin knew when it was time to pass the torch. Unfortunately, he passed it to Joni Ernst.
Rickey, good for you! Our voices must be heard. Listen, when you call their offices, their staff has to record your call and they have to keep a running total of how many calls they get a day and on what subjects. This is how they know where their constituents stand. If enough people take the time to make these phone calls, change happens. No matter what, you did the right thing!
Bravo. Thank you.
I blame the electorate as much as these ancient politicians for not having a mandatory retirement age and term limits.
I am totally baffled why Cannon is allowed to continue to delay the trial. Can she be removed on the grounds of malfeasance or acting based on her personal beliefs and not the law?
I think Jack will ask the 11th Circuit to remove her abd replace her with someone else.
I hope so, but on what grounds?
Based on repubs claiming President Biden is too old then they must surely believe Grassley is well beyond being capable of holding office. But of course they don’t, it’s just more GOP hypocrisy.
Johnson is not a “puppy”. He is a pervert trying to hide his own demons.
💙🙌✌️
What I wouldn't give to wake up tomorrow morning and open my news feed, to find that a mass arrest was carried out at 0600 in DC, with all Republicans who participated in Trump's conspiracy, voting not to accept the electoral votes after the January 6 insurrection, hauled out of bed and marched off.
We could then see lots of progress as their departure for the DC Jail really did Make America Great Again.
I would be ecstatic and seriously don't know why they haven't all been arrested yet. They tried to overthrow the government!
Read Brad Onishi's new book Preparing for War.
Might be too scary to read:
Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism--And What Comes Next https://g.co/kgs/6ubN9PL
The evidence is in everyone's face. We have waited too long. I'm so very pissed.
That surely would wouldn’t it? It’s unfortunate that those who are in any kind of leadership position seem as timid as bunnies and as slow moving as turtles.
Bunnies and turtles function in integrity to their place on the planet.
Maggots do not…. They kill and eat the dead!
Don't count on it. The DOJ, although independent, has tried something like that before(read Prequel) only to have a POTUS, (TRUMAN) shut it down. CONservatives do not like being investigated for treason. They kind of get nasty.
I wish MAAA didn’t sound so whiny
Who's to blame for that not happening, TC? The inconvenient truth is partisan.
Why would Chuck Grassley want to kill the Child Tax Credit bill but push for more tax cuts for billionaires? Follow the dark money with this interactive chart that helps explain his actions and see who three of his biggest, billionaire donors are. https://thedemlabs.org/2024/02/01/republican-kill-child-tax-credit-bill-follow-dark-money/
"Republicans have insisted since the 1980s that the way to expand the economy is the opposite: to invest in the “supply side,” investors who use their capital to build businesses. "
After more than four decades, it's past time for a "Reganomics" performance review. Clinical reports for the efficacy of snake oil. Giving more and more money to the richest? What's that supposed to do? It just creates economic black holes the that have sucked in business after business and shed jobs in "downsizing" (the staff, not the conglomerate) and outsourcing. "Pematemps", "gig" employment, loss of defined benefit pensions, massive reduction of living wage jobs for those without college training, but decades of debt too often the price of a diploma. Republicans run up debt and Democrats run up hiring, but lots of folks still vote for the former. That's without even talking about COVID deaths, or climate abuse nipping at our heels.
I suppose you mean perMatemps -- like permafrost, only, not being climate-change-proof, more permanent.
(Then we're surprised when things don't work with an overworked, underpaid, exploited-to-the-bone workforce. And even more surprised when workers express rage and resentment in their vote? Wouldn't we too be tempted to vote for Beelzebub or even His Very Own Agent Orange if we were treated like gig workers?)
There are a bunch of companies that just announced staffing cuts. The stated reason is the cost is cutting into their profit margins and the shareholders are upset. Greedflation at its best!
Another excuse they give is preparation for the coming downturn. The downturn that is not coming.
Price gouging? CEO raises? Are these not flags for investigation? arent they the ‘leaders’ in that field🤨 if truth prevails a lot of impeachments/never hold office branding will come soon. But 11/24 WE can do this very thing then ‘26, ‘28,30 ..🗣️roll out the blue carpet . Time to pay attention, the piper, and hold them accountable.
VOTE💙
Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Why the heck not?
I experienced more messed up transactions in the last year than during the pandemic.
« Gig employment »
Thanks 🙏
This is So true and quasi criminal if not in the very least simply shortsighted for a community of people !!! Young people are not learning trades, skills… where does delivery get you …,? « "Pematemps", "gig" employment, loss of defined benefit pensions, massive reduction of living wage jobs for those without college training, but decades of debt too often the price of a diploma. Republicans run up debt and Democrats run up hiring, but lots of folks still vote for the former. »….
Keynes had it right: Proven by fiscal and monetary policies that got [helped to get] us out of the Great Depression, helped alleviate the Great Recession and now again with the name or title attributed to the WSJ of Bidenomics, the policies and programs that our current presidential administration has used to help guide us - our economy - out of the pandemic!
I continue to give credit to Reagan for two things: Nominating Sandra Day O’Connor as a Supreme Court Justice and saying that “Progress is our most important product” … or was that GE?
It was definitely Ronnie on the GE chicken & mashed potatoes GE Lunch Circuit.
"Reaganomics" was the code name of a plutocratic coup. Psyops.
The only sensible thing I can ever recall Reagan saying was "Trust but verify". It could almost be misconstrued as "the sci*nti#ic method".
Let’s not forget the Rand Corp study on income inequality in the US from 1974-2018 and supply side economics sent nearly $50T (that’s trillion) from 90% of the population to the top 10%, with the vast majority going to the top 1% or really the top .001%. Nothing trickled down, but it’s a fire-hose of cash to the top.
I agree.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
- Thoreau
" For the love of money is the root of all evil: "
- The Bible- Timothy
Love? In a this context, a misleading word. More like an exclusive sociopathic obsession.
Toss in misused political power, and the power of violence as well. It's all about dominance and exploitation.
Chuck Grassley is 110 years old. What is it with aging politicians? Retire. Go home. Enough already. They have to drop dead on the Senate floor? Grassley is ahole. He doesn't care about kids. He's trying be relevant and kiss his donor's ass at the same time. Heavy sigh, I need more coffee.
Thanks for the laugh this morning. I needed that.
Signed up for Democracy Lab's email updates & data. Thanks Deepak.
I an following the dark money through quite a few people, including you, Deepak. Look on X for mudpuppy.
What a disgrace to humanity. Pathetic creature.
Deepak, Robert Hubbell's name is misspelled in your credit.
Thanks for that link, Deepak Puri. Yep, Chuckie owes the oligarchs and thus, they in turn OWN him.
I want to see the return of the fairness doctrine, the repeal of Citizens United, a return of the Voting Rights Act as originally envisioned, a repeal of Dobbs, and application of section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the former guy and all the congressional reps who characterize the riot on January 6 as "peaceful tourism." Then I want to see anti-monopolistic policies enforced, the environment protected, climate change contested, and a whole lot more kindness and consideration for those in need.
Yes! And could we add automatic voter registration at age 18? An election day holiday, 10 day early voting window, mail in voting ... and incentives to vote - like a tax break and a whole chicken (or four pounds of tofu :)?
In Australia, voting is mandatory. The penalties are minor. But it sets a tone, right?
Yes! And mail-in voting in all 50 states. It works like a charm here in Oregon. I can't imagine having to go to the polls and stand in line in inclement weather in order to vote. That's archaic.
W/O mail in voting, I would call it voter suppression. How many won't or can't! stand in line?
We need Woman's Rights Ratified in the States.
I dream
🫶🏻👍
Well, that about sums it up, Evelyn.
Then get out the vote for Democrats.
I agree with you, Evelyn.
💙💙💙
Evelyn, we all want the same after November. IThe dems best be ready and push the buttons without dallying.
Yes!!
Thank you for pulling it all together tonight Heather. There are many fed up with all the bluster and no action. Saying no to the border bill after screaming for it for years might just get the discust level high enough to make a difference in the 2024 election.
An interesting portmanteau : Discussion of the disgusting, and plenty to talk about.
End of story ~"Since they took control of the House in 2023, House Republicans have been able to conduct almost no business"
Monkey (wrench) business.
Their principal aim seems to be to block anything that might make the President look good.
We know it's a big concern of their painted figurehead, to look good.
Re the mention that Biden's economic policies aren't reaching everyone, here is a quote from a New Hampshire voter on inflation data: "I don't know whose pocketbook they're looking at, but it isn't mine." Why do the big-picture data fail to report or somehow override available data on price increases for actual purchases by ordinary people, like supermarket items or auto fuel? Ordinary folks don't care about big-picture data, but they care very much about the prices of things they actually need to get by. "Greedflation" seems to have affected precisely those prices. So why aren't Biden and the Dems fighting "greedflation" in a way that's visible to actual voters? If they are, I haven't noticed yet. THAT would be effective campaigning.
Gas prices have gone down - even here in Los Angeles.
Same here in Michigan. It’s the grocery stores that we are paying for greedflation.
Eating lots of Michigan venison and fish these days (although, that's my preference anyway.) I get wild game and fish from local hunters and fishermen in exchangre for my apple, berry and cherry pies (local fruit).
Are you in the UP? My mom was born in Eagle Harbor - back in 1911. It's so beautiful up there.
Beautiful up there!! I live in northwest Michigan, lower peninsula, but try to get my U.P. fix every autumn! (P.S. In 1911 the Keewenau peninsula would hve been frightfully remote and cold!)
Here in Oregon as well. The name brand are highest. Last week we filled our Subaru up for $3 a gallon at Fred Meyer. Friends in Texas said they are paying $2 per gallon. I haven't seen prices like that in decades.
Gas prices typically increase during the summer months when usage increases due to vacation travel and other reasons.
Well, it’s a capitalist system, and the government is unable to control the price of goods and services unfortunately. And now with corporations becoming larger and larger, including grocery stores, what is most important to them is that their shareholders are making lots of money on their investments. We had an attempt at wage and price controls for a period of time in the 70s up here in Canada. I don’t recall the end result. I’ll check it out.
I didn't say that the administration should actually institute price controls. I said the administration should be SEEN fighting "greedflation" wherever it is happening. SOME of those corporations have actually drawn down prices when protest was loud enough.
I contacted my Senator Amy Klobuchar about greedflation. She replied and said they have passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. In addition the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, that hasn't been update since 2001. Opening up Medicare to negotiate drug prices. A bill for attacking junk fees.
Greedflation is a product of corporations keeping their shareholders fat and happy. The prices at my local grocery keep going up. They have us checking out our own groceries so they don't have to hire more help. Soon we will have to stock the shelves too. The cost of production has come down. Greed has gone up.
Lisa59, the self checkout can be a real pain in the azz! I do most of my shopping at locally owned markets (eg, co-ops & independent markets), but once in awhile will shop a Safeway…I asked one of the self-checkout monitors if it was to reduce staffing…the fellow didn’t know. My county’s Costco installed a bunch of self-checkout stations, but decided it wasn’t really a good thing & scaled way back, to just a few. That said, I do sometimes utilize them if I only have a few items, but mainly prefer to have a nice chat with the checker ringing up my purchases. Ha, remember the old days when we didn’t pump our own gas & the station attendant(s) did & even cleaned your window while the tank was filling?!
Hey Barbara, those were the days. I hate self checkouts. I'm not shy, so I stand there and say real loud, "I'm I taking someone's job here". "This is wrong". Oh well, I try.
Thank you for this informative comment. Unfortunately, it's unclear how any of the measures Sen. Klobuchar named will have any impact on supermarket prices. I totally endorse your observation about how and why things have changed there. Which is why I suggested that the Dems' campaign should focus on exactly such issues close to voters' real-life concerns, and stop repeating the global inflation numbers until they've done so.
I agree you. On the production end of things they can do more. The problem is corporate greed. They don't have much say over that. For some, it's their donors. But, you're right, people will vote based on the price of their bag of groceries. At my local co-op prices are coming down. Not a the smaller grocery chains. My Senator is aware of this.
I am seeing my grocery bill @ a local chain slowly come down. Some of the inflated items go on sale @ ½ their normal price & I stock up. That they can decrease the price for a sale says something re greedflation.
How would that work?
Step 1: Go local, at least local enough to find out where there might already be actual protest and not just grumbling.
Step 2: Organize, with the help of local people, to magnify existing protest. The internet works FOR the good side in this case.
Step 3: Get regional, or even national attention for such actions, if necessary by calling the editors and pointing them to such protests. This tactic is old-fashioned, but it might still work, though maybe not with Gannett-ized newspapers.
Step 4: IF step 3 works, national attention could follow.
Yes, this is WORK. For political organisations, it means real outreach, and not just issuing PR releases. For the news people, it's doing more than sitting in newsrooms and waiting for news agency reports to summarize.
I want to believe that there are Substack consumers (!) who would join in steps 1 and 2, if they were really tried.
Is it a true capitalistic system? If so....why does the federal government bailout corporations with our tax dollars? My understanding is, that in a true capitalistic system, there will be corporations who manage their business well enough to survive economic ups and downs (like COVID) and others that will fail because of poor management strategies.
So I think we have a corporate socialism system....where the feds bail out failing corporations right and left (not families...but corporations 😤).
I've argued this point, only to hear, well we need airlines so we can travel. So we need to bail them out if they are failing. My response to that comment has always been, some corporation will buy that failed airline, and make it successful. So, if we are operating under a true capitalistic society we should let it fail.
I rarely get a an applause for my assessment 😂.
I heard a podcaster recently who said: "Democracy needs capitalism, but capitalism doesn't need democracy. Our democracy was on hold for 4 years under trump, and has been held hostage for 3 years by Republicant's.
Lack of competition due to mergers leaves companies in a position to raise prices. If we win in November regulation will be on the to do list.
So many of our Congressmen and women are on the payroll of these greedy corporations. Just watch their votes and they will self identify…doing their paymasters bidding. It’s not just about trump pulling their strings.
You might ask why ordinary folks make rather poor decisions re their news source. And why Fox and similar sources are not interested in explaining how macro policies actually do affect ordinary folks’ pocket books.
Do ANY cable news channels do that? I watch CNN International and have NEVER seen such a thing. Big-picture reporting dominates because it's EASIER, but it has VERY LITTLE actual impact on the opnions of ordinary people. I wish that HCR would focus on this a bit more tightly.
Try PBS! Marketplace on public radio (NPR) has lots of good info.
Great, I listen to PBS when I'm in the US, but it's not so easy to catch in Europe.
Fair question. Frankly, few even try to explain but some do provide more factual data about macro policies and trends. I honestly doubt the expertise and ability of most journalists to interpret economic data. It’s easier for them to cite another mediocre poll.
CEPR website (center for economic policy research), has good stuff. I especially like Dean Baker there.
Hears what I found re: wage and price controls in Canada in the 1970s.
The Act 1975
Amongst its many controls, it limited pay increases for federal public employees and those in companies with more than 500 employees to 10 per cent in the first year, 8 per cent the next, and 6 per cent thereafter. Additionally, the Anti-Inflation Board was created to set wages and prices.The price and wage controls were enforced until 1978, and the act was repealed in 1979.
Reaction
The Act proved highly contentious and there was much debate over whether the Parliament of Canada had overstepped its powers in enacting the law. Consequently, the government put a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada, and in 1976 the court passed down its opinion in Reference Re Anti-Inflation Act, which declared the law constitutional.
Biden has far exceeded my expectations in most regards, but he’s squandered hard won political capital by embracing Netanyahu’s authoritarian criminality and by failing to take a hard line with Abbot in Texas. These issues could cost him the election.
Perhaps you might be interested in taking the time to read about the administration sanctioning the Kach Krazies in the West Bank for attacking Palestinians. Four of the worst of the American nutbags got all their assets frozen today. You might also be interested in the plans now being formulated for the US and other governments in Europe to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank on the conclusion of the fighting, which will force Israel to finally deal with the issue. You might also be interested, assuming you can tear yourself away from Tik-Tok, in the moves the US is making to support the Israeli opposition to Nitwityahoo, to get him out of office finally. Biden has washed his hands of Benny.
The Tik Tok remark is insulting. If it's anything like Instagram, it has quite a few videos from reporters on the ground in Gaza that probably aren't shown in the msm, even though there is a lot of censorship of posts critical of Israel or showing Palestinians in a positive light. The unspeakable destruction of people and structures, the intentional starvation, and the withholding of painkillers among many other atrocities should have prompted our Zionist compromised government to cut arms and funding long ago. 25,000 Palestinians murdered! And they're nowhere near finished with them. It's obscene to make light of it. And to think this all started 70 years with people violently forced off their land and olive groves, out of their homes, with no compensation. And then treated as subhuman, controlled, imprisoned, tortured, etc. Most of us, including the Zionists, would be seething with rage if we were in their position. They are brave and have a strong faith that Palestine will be free. I admire them and grieve for them and fear for them. The US has their blood on our hands.
1948 to be exact - 75 years ago
You're right. 76 this year.
Have you got a better explanation for all the know-nothings who think they know it all?
Note: And nearly 150 of these journalists have been targeted and killed, often along with their whole families, by Israel.
TCinLA. Your condescension undermines your argument. I don’t follow Tik Tok, FB, Instagram or any other social media, which are all rife with misinformation. I use Media Bias Fact Check to vet my sources. The administration’s actions to bolster Netanyahu’s indiscriminate campaign against Gaza have done irreparable damage. My point was that a considerable number of voters have turned against Biden because of this issue. With our own democracy on the line, I’ll choose Biden over Trump, but I won’t give him a free pass for the atrocities he has enabled.
TC, do yourself a favor and watch the video conversation here with Scahill. Then maybe you’ll quit embarrassing yourself in trying to defend the Biden/Blinken complicity in a genocide by touting ‘behind the scenes’ BS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjl145xMvxM
Go fuck yourself asswipe.
Aw, come on, TC, you’re supposed to be a writer.
That was fine mess weak sauce.
Biden Team finally moved on Settlor Predations & Predators in The West Bank which goes to the bullseye Bibi's prior government Coalition if not the spreading conflict from Yemen to Lebanon.
Too little, too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjl145xMvxM
He is measured, not reactive. Good for him
He is complicit in genocide, and in this case, a monster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjl145xMvxM
Dare we hope that the message of progress rather than obstruction is beginning to get out?
I like to believe that for repubs the chickens are coming home to roost right when it's an election year. That should be enough to cause backroom panic, and if you've noticed many of the senior members smell disaster and they're heading for the exits. They want no part of the payback that could be headed their way.
VOTE BLUE 2024
I love how our Heather refers to Dems policies and programs getting passed and doing good.
She does this knowing fully well that Republicans have zero policies or programs of their own. But it might behoove us to look a bit more at the set of clown shows, lies, and hypocrisies Republicans inhabit instead.
If the Republicans -- any of them -- had acquired any humanities at any point in their public lives, and used some in reference to real people in real communities, they'd realize how our best artists, in all the arts, always signal their debts to predecessors, artists prior to them. They can't do this because they're so bereft of humanities reference that they enact their own fantasy scripts without predecessors, humane debts.
Call them names, these mostly white trash? Why hold back? They're all accepting government paychecks as if they were yet doing government work (programs and policies). But their madness is so total, so all-engulfing, they cannot see a scintilla out of their replacement madness.
So maybe our wielding the wildest of insult for them makes sense, insofar as their madness has so taken over, they all dwell in cult-land fantasies completely unaware of how their would-be performances have no art, no predecessor artists, no debts to any betters.
Phil, when you mentioned, ''White Trash,'' Lauren Boebert and Maggot Traitor Goon immediately came to mind to me. Those 2 are a great example of white trash. Would that make DJT, ''Orange Trash?''
I got reprimanded by fellow readers here yesterday, John, for using the term "trailer trash."
I was thinking of many of our dearest Republicans drawing their paychecks for jobs in Congress which they've abandoned in favor of performance theatrics. Many compete with the two you mention for vulgarity, idiocy, illiteracy.
Orange trash guy? Yes, he's still drawing his crowds of goons and gawkers who demonstrably never got any humanities in any of the schools where most spent twelve years only to attain fifth grade. Thus they're well suited to the fraud / rapist and all his "bing-bing-bongs" and constant huckster side show eclipsing even George C. Scott in "The Flim Flam Man."
And one of my non paying subscribers deleted me when I called Tim Scott Trump’s newest Stepin Fetchet. Which he is, btw. Par for the course.
Phil, i fully agree with everything you said in your reply. These rogue creeps that are in the Fascist GQP have made a total mockery of our House of Representatives with the outbursts, vulgarity, idiocy, arrogance and illiteracy. Maggot Traitor Goon grew up and was raised in arguably to most racist town in the state of Georgia, Cumming, Georgia. There is also a very small town just across the Georgia state border and only 18 miles from where i live, Ranburne, Alabama, that is blatantly racist.
I never thought i would live to see such immature and insane behavior from members of the Congress of the United States. They behave like feuding cliques in middle school. These cretins are playing silly games and getting paid a salary with our tax dollars. Most of these man/woman children had involvement with the JAN 6 insurrection and riots and really should have been immediately expelled from Congress for their part in that fiasco. I am beyond sick and fed up with these brats and their childish game playing in Congress.
I got an email tonight with the heading of, ''House member nominates Donald TUMP for the Nobel Peace Prize'' The email didn't call any names, but i believe i know who nominated him, MTG??
I’d say DJT is the Orange Trash! It’s not me saying it as much as it is his demeanor and behavior that say it! I’ve seen more mature toddlers than him!
I think the insipid clown’s diaper qualifies him for the white trash moniker. 🤷♂️
I love how you call HCR 'our Heather!'
Good, Marj, yes.
We love her -- many of us in gratitude for how hard she works, how well she gives us forum.
Our names, our views get spotlighted, paraded? Yes. But all this in recognition of, tribute to her diligence in getting facts straight, evidence lined up -- in contradistinction to the orange diaper guy whose hordes scurry only after the slogans which bad schooling has allowed the billionaire classes to spew, manipulate.
This link came through threads to a comment I made. I’d missed this talk and highly recommend listening if you too missed it (obviously I’m a bit slow). Our professor is so enlightening: "Feb 1 from Chaplain T Nicholetti
I heard Heather's discussion at the LBJ library and learned more about why ordinary folks can get taken over by authoritarians. I also got to LOL a few times because she is so naturally witty! 211k views 3 months ago!!!"
https://youtu.be/gkbAayPUjtM?si=URl7GyZibNOJPDou
Well, thanks for the link! That's terrific! I assume they'll finish telling each other how great it is to be there in a minute - I've saved it to my desktop for when I've finished doing what I should be doing right now... Our Professor wears her growing fame very lightly - one can only be prouder of her.
Listening to her, I discovered I was even in more agreement with her than I knew.
(Smile) As E M Forster said, "Only connect!" Who knows? 2 minutes of HCR might do more for the cause than the cleverest and most insulting pieces by The Lincoln Project. Taming is achieved by warmth and kindness.
Don't you love the bit at the end - "Peter Gabriel? Man, what are we doing here!"
Constitution Day, September 17th, the day she started the unbroken string of letters, also became Constitution Day and Citizenship Day 20 years ago. A happy coincidence? It is also one of the talks I have revisited at least 3 times.
A few weeks ago someone wrote a letter to the editor in the Ellsworth American and quoted HCR. I know of several that comment here from ME as do you.
So I sent a letter to the Ellsworth American today advertising HCR's daily newsletter. I'm not sure where in ME she lives but she's still a Mainer as far as I'm concerned.
Even if it just gets her a few readers it will have been worth it.
She has spoken at our meeting house in our town earlier last year, I couldn't make that one but did watch the video. Later I had been able to get one of 500(?) tickets that seemed to have been spoken for in about a minute and a half for an event at the Camden Opera House (I got 1 of about 70 still available 20 seconds after they were posted but my wife was chasing the last 6 or 7 disappearing a minute later) unfortunately it was cancelled due to the unknown whereabouts of the Lewiston shooter at that time, but I did catch her and the book at the Books-A-Million store in South Portland (Maine) on Nov 15th (again signing up as soon as the tickets were available).
It is very much worth the effort to see her events in person for all the interesting people that also attend the events (and ask really great questions).
Watching videos of the other events such as the one at the LBJ Presidential Library, and one with Al Franken, and the other great interviewers are priceless in the scope of background history and innumerable other events big and small that show the many details that fit into the much bigger picture.
Thank you for the link. Very uplifting.
Thank you, Stephen Ranck! I watched the entire interview. Everybody, please watch it!…and share it! Sharing good information is how we win!
The racist totalitarian brew formed around bull shit trickle down economics cum fascism and Orwellian nihilism. Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil nailed it. Rep. David Stockman from Michigan resisted, he tried. And he failed. The woodshed concept became Gov. Ronald Reagan’s con, as the son of a drunk first married to a drunk, from Hollywood Grade B filming destroyed the Republican Party with bull shit trickle down economics ... and his racist imaginary of the obese Black welfare mother in Chicago ... paired with slick racist GHWB who gleefully added murderer Willie Horton to stuff Gov. Michael Dukakis per Lee Atwater, elevating racism in GOP leadership to Fascist Cult Code Red Party Dogma returning to Civil War confederate racism - add antisemitism - aligning the Trump Queens to GOP with Putin, Viktor Orban and Arab hatreds to - add Iran’s terrorists, Hamas in GAZA and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and other radical Jew hating groups, and WWIII nihilism threatens with border security and Trump’s Queens racism .. with MTG / Trump / Elise Stefanik fascist racism ... and the whole country and the world are again facing the Mussolini fascist mix that led Germany to Hitler...tracking Henry Ford’s antisemitism and 1930s racism in America..
What will it take? Education, education, education... and the rise of unions and New Deal policies, not socialism, capitalism and Democratic politics of inclusion... reversing Trump tax cuts... and much more.
Tolerance must rise. Decency must prevail, not Trump bullying and violence.. American youth must rise to power... Chuck Grassley must go, the House must return to sanity.
It will be along winter.
You are as old as I am, most likely. You had Better watch out, I was banned from Twitter and FB for posting what you did, three years ago.
Jeri Chilcutt, banned for what? Fact.. Explain exactly, please. A compliment, no? Never used FB.
Telling the truth? About fascism? Racism? President Ronald Reagan’s alcoholic first wife? His alcoholic father? Rep. Elise Stefanik, our stone cold 21st of New York congresswoman that returns no call from the devoted GOP popular appointed Republican County coroner and local undertaker?
Confusing arrogance in the third ranking House member that wants to be Trump’s VP? That’s a crime? She ...
Probably hopes DJT will croak to elevate her. She’s a MAGA election liar, a local liar, never lived on Willsboro Point. Her plywood selling daddy had a summer camp on The Point.
We will elect a dead Republican here. We are Red. And dead from the neck up here.
Coroner Jay Heald dislikes Stefanik. Is GOP. A good soul. A devoted Republican.
Being banned from Twitter is not a feat. It uses algorithms. Not intelligence. How did you manage that? Tell the truth about someone? What did tge deed? Congratulations!
I am 85 years old.
Born January 1939... share your fate.
Sandy
I posted the rules Goebbels used to promulgate propaganda in Germany and said that repubs had been using these rules, and Trump had taken them over for use in his campaign. Both Twitter and FB flagged this comment. I appealed several times, apparently to humans at some point because I thought that a human would understand that I was not advocating Goebbel's lies. I was told that this post violated "community standards." At first for 6 days, then after consideration, permanently. Glad MSM is finally saying it out loud. Sadly, may be too late.
WW2 loomed large in my young life, especially after the death of my 19-year-old nephew in Italy. I liked Ike, was a fan of Everett Dirksen, and have been appalled by repubs since Reagan./Murdoch. Worried about a future that I will likely not live to experience.
Well, Goebbels is unfamiliar. However, fascism is not. The Nazis were unrepentant fascist. To my mind, today’s GOP feels fascist. Not Holocaust fascist, but intolerant fascist nonetheless. Trump is a Big Lie paragon of intolerance that seeds the fascist insanity and instinct in insecure whites that need to feel superior, their issues flower from suffocating ignorance, and fear, too many read a a 5th grade level if at all, their weekly newspapers are classified ad driven, void of news, so the community conscience is impaired, the mirror is cracked and cloudy.. so, our culture is unwell, and President Biden has called President Trump is a “sick ****” whack that must be banned. Joe Biden speaks what we feel. He’s dealing with the most dangerous and disgusting world scene. He’s done the job and deserves another term.
So, Jeri Chilcutt, banned for expressing views that an algorithm dislikes, keep your own counsel. You are - sadly - close to the truth when you compare Nazi fascist propaganda to stuff we see elsewhere.
We live in dangerous times. So-called social platforms are anti-social. Computers are not social. They are Orwellian and Existential and quite possibly as dangerous as the subject of your comment for which you are banned.
Red Badge of Courage.. Brave New World..
The Stranger reacted. Albert Camus got it. Beautifully.
The Plague is a masterpiece.
The Nobel comes to the novelist with truth in his fiction.
Expulsion comes to the good soul that tests the means of nihilism and arouses the algorithm.
Congratulations!
We have enough evil today, had no need to resurrect evil from the past, but it's so much more convenient, tried and tested. And defeated, time and time again. May it be so this time.
FB 's bans & jail time reflect their double standard & hypocrisy
Confused... but congratulations!
What is confusing? I have been in fb jail for posting something from Heather. I have reported disinformation by Congressional Reps. I have reported some of the most horrendous & violent posts from the pro birth group.
Carole, I once had a FB post flagged & removed for posting a link to the Dept of Education’s Student Aid site in response to a commenter’s inaccurate statement about some student aid issue (I worked in the field for 40+ years) and wanted readers to go to “the source” for accurate information. They never did respond to my query about why my post was removed.
You mean you didn't get one of those "violated community standards" explanations. Which told one, exactly nothing, except that they didn't like it.
I know. I frequently think about deleting my account bc of their double standards. It is their platform & suggests what 1984 thought control fb will be
So true, I was in FB jail several times, when I dared to post something besides family pics.
I guess I'm in good company Jeri as I am banned from commenting on WAPO.
Speaking of watching it, yesterday I reported Schmeekle for post the same two posts over and over. It is ridiculous to have to filter out repetitive emails which you don't have to do on the NYTimes or the WAPO.
I haven't noticed any of his posts today. Bummer if he got kicked off of here /S
Not a bummer really, so tired of his efforts to convince all that he's the smartest person on the internet.
That's a good way of putting it Jeri. I reported him for repeated the same two comments several times. It's bad enough skipping over his drivel once.
I tried to block him, but I can't.
Blocking trolls needs to be an option. There are plenty of dissenting opinions among those who are not blathering the talking points for our sworn enemies.
Absolutely. I don't mind ignoring a few messages a day, but he always attaches his BS to the first comments so you are forced to bypass them to read the comments worth reading.
S B - that was a good rant. Really good.
Grassley is channeling the duplicity of Reagan (Iran hostages), as you mentioned - the Willie Horton lie by GHWB and Nixon's undermining peace to get elected (killing American soldiers).
It's been the playbook for authoritarians and oligarchs forever. Stir up the naive and angry with fabrications and twisted facts - all to gain more power and ultimately MONEY. You would think that since their situations never improve when the GOP is in power, they would wake up. But then the MAGA types pull out their bazookas of the "culture war". Pawn sacrifice all day long.
But the days are getting longer. No longer need a flashlight to take our dog out in the morning. Spring is around the corner. Looking forward to what the Earth will provide.
Keep the flashlight… skunks prowl around in the dark and during the day. From under your dark porch.
Oy. Yes. We also have fox and coyotes. Blood on the snow around the bird feeder. Everything has to eat...
It's worth remembering that Chuck Grassley, IA, has been in office since 1981. He's a curious old curmudgeon. Other than having been swept in on the Supply side tide of the early Reagan years, he done nothing notable or honorable or for the good of the rest of the country that I can recall. He'll always support farm subsidies but otherwise everything is Socialism to him. I ask other readers to name one good thing he has done in his 40 years in office.
Got to say he is well thought if here. Iowans think highly of him. He visits all 99 counties on a regular basis. He replies to letters and they do not come with many of the carbon copy trash like Cruz would use.
I agree that he has nit done much otherwise, but he is evidently very upfront and personal which keeps him in office. The fact he does nothing I think is a plus here.
Anyone is better than Lyin' Ted Cruz, I'll give you that. But Grassley has seemed to be deliberately unhelpful to Obama and/or Biden, much preferring, as far as I can see, to say things guaranteed to generate Fox clicks. He seems to hate all things Federal unless it's crop support or unless there is extraordinary flooding on the Des Moines or Cedar rivers.
They can’t
Not only does he support farm subsidies, he applies for them and is the recipient of the same subsidies he votes for. Plus, he's almost 90 years old. Soon they'll whell him into the Senate chambers in a hospital bed ala Strom Thurmond.
Not one, so true of 99% of repubs
He's more of a corn dog lobbyist than anything else. Actually, he's been in office since 1881.
NIHILISM
“Today in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin called the Republicans’ behavior “nihilism and performative politics.”
Oxford Dictionaryof nihilism- the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.
I would have to say that the Republican Party is actually using religion to capture their base. Evangelicals supporting the right to lifers. Members of the government using that to block promotions of military members for almost a year - one person against abortion. And that person, if put in a position of having a daughter impregnated through rape, would have it performed in a New York Minute.
It is a very dangerous situation where our forefathers recognize the importance of the separation of church from state, yet here it is coming back again lead by the most immoral leader on earth- Donald J. Trump. Backed by the most dangerous leader on earth Vladimir Putin.
But we have one thing on our side, smart intelligent women. Hopefully enough to offset the idiot ones. It is the right to choose, the right to have an abortion because of medical, rape, incest, or simply a poor decision one night. A decision she didn’t want to have to live with, at least for now. Yet a decision.
For people to lead their life through God by forcing it on others. Then let’s force the elimination of certain guns. Those horrible things are creating living human abortions every day. Protest those gun shops and gun manufactures. These are parents that wanted children, had them, and lost them to a gun. And it pains me. No parent should go through that.
That seems to be more inhuman then stopping a fetus.
I’m struggling to express a thought that is new to me this morning. It is based on my experience with middle class and wealthy branches of my family, and their living during the Great Depression, WWII, the postwar boom and so on, so we’re talking about Hoover and then FDR, WWII, the postwar boom, the second Washington (Eisenhower), and then Reagan, who aside from what Heather says quite correctly about him, failed in his initial bid to be president by being himself, so he became whoever he needed to be to get elected, setting the stage for Trump.
Middle class Americans have been co-opted by having the bulk of their retirement funds invested in stocks and bonds over which they lack the expertise or funds to manage themselves, so they have been separated from making moral decisions like those they follow for charitable and political donations. I’m talking about pensions and then IRAs. As the result, corporations are doing what they will, even though it is contrary to their beliefs, including in Democracy.
Even in my liberal church, investment parameters are not fully in line with the expressed beliefs of members and the denomination as a whole.
It is a troubling situation.
Do not look for ethics. Morality. Money has no conscience, no morals, no compass. The SEC is a revolving door, SDNY is schizophrenic, some people are honest, some not, Sir Rudy was a latter day Savonarola wanna be, a wife cheating liar, on the make for mayor, framed the innocent, part of the eternal cartel of Street studs and creeps, it’s all in plain view, Secretary Cyrus Vance was honest, he was unique. Hard to find among the successful.
Thanks to Barbara Keating!