Divemedic

Inflation is how much?

The Federal government is claiming that inflation is only 5.3 percent per year. This is despite the fact that energy is up 25%, gasoline is up 42%, and car prices are up 31.9% from a year ago. Home prices are increasing at a record pace, with June seeing an 18.6% rise– not an annual rise, an 18.6% rise in just one month. Year over year, home prices are up by about 31% year over year. (pdf alert)

We are being mislead. Anyone who buys anything and pays attention to prices knows it.

Meanwhile, stock market investors are happy. Good. I am trying to sell all of my holdings by the end of the year. Read this story to see why.

By Divemedic, ago

Labor shortage continues

School bus drivers, at least in my area, aren’t full time jobs. The job is only for 4 to 5 hours a day, 180 days a year. A half time job, at best. In Orange County, they are offering a $3500 sign on bonus, and they still can’t get enough applicants, no one even showed up to the hiring event. It’s not just a Florida problem. There is a nationwide shortage of school bus drivers. Massachusetts can’t get enough school bus drivers, so the Governor has activated the National Guard and is forcing them to drive the bus.

School bus drivers aren’t the only shortage. Substitute teachers are short as well.

It isn’t just the public sector. A restaurant in Winter Park has closed its doors after 35 years. Not for lack of business, but for lack of employees. There were only 4 people left who worked there, and no one was even applying for jobs. I have eaten there before, the food was actually quite good.

The left claims that no one wants to return to work because wages are too low. I just don’t buy this one. How can people afford to simply sit at home with no money coming in? The answer is simple: they don’t need the money.

If they don’t need the money, the next question is: Why don’t they need the money? Logic follows that they must either have no bills, or have another source of money to cover those bills. We all know that they must have SOME bills. Food, the cell phones that everyone seems to have, etc.

That must mean that employers have competition. Someone is paying them enough that they don’t need to work. Welfare, combined with food stamps, the $300 a month tax payments for having children, and other monies issued from the public dole are removing the main incentive for working: they don’t need more to live on.

The US government is practically pouring bags of cash out of helicopters. Even businesses are catching tons of cash. Selected businesses, that is. The Biden administration is handing out $482 million to aircraft manufacturing companies, even though they are making trillions.

Here comes the inflation.

By Divemedic, ago

Republican

A Republican from Manhattan posts:

I have said plenty of times on this very site: Just because the Democrats are your enemy doesn’t mean that the Republicans are your friend.

By Divemedic, ago

I don’t buy it

So I can believe that there are swastika wearing idiots who identify with the right. It isn’t like I am going to claim that it’s impossible that a guy like that could exist.

I just don’t believe this story. We are expected to believe that a person can drive from California to Washington, DC with no plates, his truck covered in swastikas, and not one cop pulled him over? An Internet search for the guy finds nothing but the story from DC. Nothing on social media, no criminal record, nothing. It’s like the guy didn’t exist before today.

It just stinks.

By Divemedic, ago

Signs of the collapse

Back in 2007, there were hints that a financial disaster were coming, it’s just that many of them were simply missed, even though they were obvious in hindsight. As a firefighter, I saw them: Multiple families living in brand new, expensive homes without a stick of furniture. They could barely make the payment on their adjustable rate balloon mortgage, so they certainly couldn’t afford furniture. All it took was an increase in gas prices to set off the entire mortgage collapse.

There are again signs of an impending financial disaster, and they are everywhere. For example:

My in-laws were in Maine for the summer. They returned last week. Just before they returned, my wife went over to their house to prepare it for their arrival. While she was there, she smelled something odd, like rotting garbage. The smell was coming from the refrigerator. Even though the display on the door said it was cold, it was not. All of the food had rotted.

After a rather nasty cleaning session, the in-laws returned home. They went shopping for a new refrigerator, and there were not many to be had. It turns out that there is no supply coming from overseas, where most of them are made. The ones that ARE getting through are not enough to meet demand. There are lengthy backorders.

Yet another sign that the economy is grinding to a halt is coming from the auto industry. GM and Ford have suspended the production of pickup trucks because of the shortage in computer chips. This is a disaster for Ford Motor Company. All Ford makes is trucks, SUVs, and the Mustang. Ford reports that its sales are down 32 percent.

Total Ford Motor Company sales during July 2021 decreased 32 percent from last July, selling only 120,053 units. Sales of cars were hit hardest, with a 78% reduction to 4,365 units. Trucks were down 38 percent to 72,574 units, and SUV sales dropped 35 percent to 43,114 units.

That news was bad enough, but was ever worse for August, as Ford sales dropped 33 percent in August from the same month last year.

If this is a disaster for Ford, it is also a disaster for the US economy. Ford is the 21st largest company in the USA, and GM is the 22nd.

We are seeing shortages in all sorts of things: supplies are hard to find. Chicken, lumber, microchips, gas, steel, metals, chlorine, and ketchup packets are all in short supply. We shut down the world’s economy, and it is not wanting to restart. We can’t even get people to return to work.

“Experts” can argue about it for months, but no matter the cause, the result is the same. This slowdown of the economy is going to continue for months, perhaps several years. How many businesses will fail as a result is anyone’s guess. One thing is for sure, though. The economy is going to get much, much worse. Inflation is going to increase markedly as the law of supply and demand begins to take hold. Once Suzy Soccermom figures out that there is a problem, expect panic buying and even more shortages as she begins to panic shop for things.

The things that begin to skyrocket in price and see scarcity will probably not make sense. Remember the toilet paper shortage of last year? Like that, but with more products being involved.

I am getting completely out of the stock market. We began a complete sell off last week. As soon as funds are released, we are moving into other investments, things that are not based in the US dollar.

By Divemedic, ago

Take advantage of minorities

Facebook recently decided to buy outstanding invoices from businesses owned by women and minorities. The way it works is the business sells an outstanding invoice to Facebook, then Facebook has the debtor pay them what is owed. In return for this, the business pays Facebook 1% of the value of the invoice.

There is a catch– the invoices have to be “eligible.” Invoices must have a minimum value of $1,000 and the customers must have an investment-grade rating. In other words, the invoices ARE going to be paid, making this a no risk endeavor for FB.

Businesses eligible for this program must be certified by an approved partner organization as majority-owned, operated and controlled by racial or ethnic minorities, women, U.S. military veterans, LGBTQ+ people or individuals with disabilities. This makes FB look “woke,” but what is happening here is that they are taking advantage of gullible small business owners.

In other words, Facebook is making no risk loans at a rate that varies from 4% to 12% APR to gullible companies and making itself appear to be “woke.” I wonder how many people will think that FB is doing people a favor.

By Divemedic, ago

On watch

When I was in the Navy, we would periodically have women on board, usually reserve units. Back in those days, women were not normally present onboard combat ships. Whenever they were aboard, they were housed in a berthing compartment that had its own head, as well as having only one easily guarded entrance. A lucky petty officer was then posted at that entrance to make sure that no males entered. One of them was on this watch when a friend saw him just standing there in the middle of the passageway. The conversation that ensued was very much like this:

Passerby: “What are you doing, standing here in the way?”

Person on watch: “I am on the pussy watch.”

Well, one of the females housed in the aforementioned compartment overheard the exchange and filed a complaint for sexual harassment. The petty officer was brought to Captain’s Mast for punishment. It went like this:

Captain: “Why did you refer to your assignment like that?”

Petty Officer: “Well, when I am on duty caring for the ship’s generator, I am on Ship’s Generator watch. When I am caring for the steering gear, I am on steering watch. I was guarding the pussy, so I figured I was on the pussy watch.”

The Captain reduced him one full paygrade, took half of his pay for two months, and confined him to the ship on extra duty for 45 days. In other words, he got the maximum punishment permitted without a courts martial.

Can you imagine how that would go today?

By Divemedic, ago

I DARE YOU

As I read the below quote from this article:

consider New York, where the legislature favors restrictions on the Second Amendment. Could it outlaw firearms by deputizing any New Yorker to file million dollar lawsuits against gun owners in the state?

Let me explain why: Once this happens, the people who were sued to the point where their lives are being destroyed can just shoot you in the face. The courts aren’t the final arbiters of what is to be allowed. Try this and you will find out what happens when the consent of the governed is revoked.

By Divemedic, ago

A lesson in economics

A commenter to a recent post seems to be confused as to what the problem is. If a person tells me that they don’t understand a concept that I am putting forward, I will always take the time to fully explain my position.

Let’s start with my original statement:

CVS announces that they will no longer have education requirements for jobs that don’t require a government license. They will also be increasing wages by 36 percent for the uneducated morons they will be hiring. Those who DID get an education? Not so much.

Divemedic

Guy then replied (after a bit) with this:

I guess I’m lost on where this is bad. If they’re no longer requiring a degree where not required by law they’re allowing people with actual life skills who may not have gotten a useless degree (useless as in, not required for a job) to get employment they could be qualified for.

And not saying they’re heroes, or that I want minimum wage increases, but a company voluntarily giving more money to people in the low end of their payscales seems to be good, unless you’re assuming they’re all fat black shaniquas. Some might be just, ya know, people.

Guy

So to understand why I have a problem with this, you need to understand what is happening. The company has announced that they are going to pay people without skills $30,000 a year simply for showing up to work, where they used to pay $22,000 a year for the same skillset. That represents a 36% increase. For reasons that you should already understand, this policy is inflationary.

The people who already work there and who already have skills and experience will receive the same minimum. This is known as pay compression. It isn’t happening because of the free market, and CVS isn’t doing it out of the kindness of their heart. It is happening because of the nationwide push for a $15 minimum wage, and because the Federal government is demanding that anyone getting Federal dollars do so. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid rule the medical field in this country.

This completely removes incentive for anyone to gain in skills or experience.

In 2000, a new paramedic in the Orlando area was starting at $14 an hour. New medics now are starting at $13 an hour. As these minimum wages increase, it will soon be that there is no reason for a person to go to the two years of school that it takes to become a licensed paramedic. Why? To get the same money as a person who didn’t even finish high school?

Some would argue that, in a free market, paramedics would get more money. The problem is that it isn’t a free market. Ambulance companies are paid by Medicare and Medicaid. The reimbursement rates for ambulance rides haven’t increased to keep pace. There is no room for pay raises.

So to sum it up, increasing pay at the bottom end without a corresponding increase above that means higher prices, stagnating wages, and is overall bad economically. It also serves to remove incentive for an educated workforce. This is the reason why the Indians and the Chinese are kicking our asses when it comes to the STEM and medical fields.

Guy, your earlier attack on education by equating all education with gender studies tells me that you likely don’t have an education. (If I am mistaken, please accept my apologies, I am not trying to offend.) All education isn’t gender studies. There are plenty of STEM, medical, and other degrees that are needed and important. Not only those, but trades and skills are important if this nation is to not slide into third world shithole status. We can’t all be high school dropouts who only work at retail and service jobs, but that is exactly where policies like this one will take us.

Policies like this tear at that educational foundation and will see this nation slide into savage obscurity.

By Divemedic, ago