Divemedic

Family

 We have been entertaining family since December 23. It has been a busy and stressful time. It began when my brother in law arrived on the 22nd. On the 23rd, his best friend arrived, accompanied by a girlfriend. On Christmas eve, the brother in law’s girlfriend arrived. In the middle of that, they went to Clearwater Beach for two of the days. 

They are all from the New York City area, and some of them bring with them the attitude that New Yorkers are famous for: they complain about the high taxes and high cost of living, but then want to change everywhere else into having the same politics as NYC, without realizing that the two go hand in hand. One of them told me that they like the gun laws in NYC, because it is good to keep poor people and blacks from having guns, because they can’t be trusted with them. 

On Christmas Day, they overheard my wife say something about our hedges being overgrown. They were “bored” with life down here, so they decided to repay our hospitality by doing some yard work. I told my wife I didn’t want them messing with it, because the job would take far longer than they thought it would, and then I would be stuck having to deal with it. Of course, they didn’t listen to a word I said, and this is what I am left with:

They cut the top 4 feet off the hedges. It’s hard to tell height, but the hedges were about 12 feet tall, but parts of them are now 8 feet tall. Of the 100 linear feet of hedge, they only got about 40 feet of it cut, plus left a large pile of cuttings in the yard, and we had guests coming over for a party the next day. I was sure that I would wind up with the rest, and I was pretty pissed off. 

We had a Christmas party on December 26. My son’s fiancé got drunk and made sexual overtures towards another female guest. That guest complained that it made her feel awkward and uncomfortable. I am going to have to sit down with my son and talk to him about that. My brother and his family, as well as half of my sister’s family, decided not to come. 

The hedges are still sitting there, waiting to be cut. 

By Divemedic, ago

The year that was- some highlights

 There are many jokes and complaints out there, detailing how 2020 was a bad year. For my house, it wasn’t that bad. We began the year resting at home because we had flown in from Las Vegas the previous night and didn’t get home until about 5am. The odd part was that there was a CBRN team in Las Vegas for the new year. 

February came, and I was hit by a ricochet at the range. Luckily, my range glasses stopped the fragment from hitting me in the eye. My wife and I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were there for a superspreader event of what would later be called COVID-19. 

In March, my wife and I went on a date to the prom- we were chaperones to the prom for the school where she is a teacher. The very next weekend, we had tickets to two NHL hockey games and were then going to fly to a casino for an all expenses paid trip (including airfare). We never got to do any of that. We were locked down for the next 12 weeks. During the beginning of this lockdown, we had a CD mature that was worth about $75K. We used the money from that to buy a shitload of stocks at bargain prices. More on that later. 

In June we took my brother to Houston for his cancer treatment. At the time, things didn’t look good for him. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma that has a 15% survival rate. We were going to Houston for an experimental treatment. I honestly thought that the trip would be my brother and I spending his final days together. I am happy to report that he is still with us. 

We did a week vacation to Las Vegas in July. 

I got to build a dream rifle. 

In December, we largely cashed out of the stock market, and made a six figure profit on that stock we bought in April. Our two biggest winners were RCL, which we bought 1,000 shares at $21 a share and sold at $82 a share, and DRI, which we bought at $55 a share and sold for $120. We made more on stock profits this year than from all other sources combined. .

So all in all, a good year, even if the events of the nation were a total shit show.

I am not looking forward to 2021. I don’t think we can stay insulated from the events around us for much longer.

By Divemedic, ago

An argument for incorporating

 This woman was selling children’s clothing through Amazon. She sells to California residents less than 20 times per year. California passed a law in 2019 that allows them to demand sales tax RETROACTIVELY from all businesses who sold goods in the state.  According to the state of California, because Amazon had a warehouse inside of the state, she should have collected sales tax from those sales, and did not. 

The state of California has seized all of this woman’s bank account because the 50 or so sales that she made to residents of that state paid no sales tax. This woman almost certainly sold less than $5,000 in merchandise to California residents, so California has decided to take $10,000 of this woman’s money. 

That is the primary reason why my business is conducted through corporations. It costs $140 a year to maintain a corporation in my state. As soon as I got a demand for ten grand from California for a small retail business with less than $5K in annual sales, I would have had that corporation file Chapter 7 and walked away. However, this poor woman appeared to be doing business as a sole proprietor, and now is going to be out $10,000 because California has run out of its own citizens’ money and is extorting it from citizens in other states. 

By Divemedic, ago

No consequences

 Due to a new law in New York no one can be evicted nor have any negative acts taken against them, even including a negative credit entry, for failing to pay rent or mortgage payments. This law applies to all rents and payments due until May 1, 2021. The law, according to officials, doesn’t absolve people from the debt, merely places it “on pause.” So how exactly can a landlord extract payment if eviction and negative credit reporting is off the table?

So tell me why on earth would anyone in New York pay rent for the next six months? Your average NYC apartment rents for $3,000 or more per month, meaning that New York’s landlords are on the hook for $20,000 or more for EACH rental property that they own. 

This is all a part of the Socialists using COVID as an excuse to extract themselves some wealth redistribution. 

By Divemedic, ago

If you don’t want to pay for it, you must be a bigot

 On social media, there is a discussion going on about this article, where a child rapist wants to get a sex change operation while in prison at taxpayer expense. A judge agreed, and has ordered that the operation will be done at taxpayer expense. Here is how the discussion went:

Man#1: So messed up. I’d love to know why tax payers should be forced to pay this bill? None of this makes any sense.

Snowflake: Because it falls under the realm of healthcare and prisoners can’t be denied healthcare.

Woman#1: this isn’t healthcare

Snowflake: Yeah it really is healthcare. Just cuz we don’t like the circumstances don’t mean it isn’t.

Man #2:  It’s cosmetic surgery. This it seems healthy, why can’t he get a paying prison job and save his money?

 Snowflake: We could make this argument about any healthcare issue for any inmate. For example, if a murder needs heart surgery the murder will get it.

 Woman#1: you are comparing apples and elephants.

Snowflake: Are you saying you’re okay with a murderer getting healthcare but not a rapist? Or do you just hate trans people more than murderers?

Divemedic: No, she is saying that sexual reassignment is not a necessary procedure. It is elective, no different than a person expecting a facelift or a breast enlargement on the public dime.

Snowflake: That’s just an uneducated opinion. Most doctors and therapists would agree with this action.

Divemedic: Of course they would. I am sure that most auto dealers would support buying every inmate a car. If doctors support it so much, then they can do the surgery for free. Or perhaps the inmate desiring the elective procedure can set up  a gofundme page, and all of the people who support it can pay for it.

 Snowflake:  False equivalence. I mean if ya hate trans people then just say you hate trans people. 

 Divemedic: I don’t hate trans people any more than I hate people who want to drive a Ferrari. I just don’t think it is proper to force me (through taxes) to pay for something that someone else chooses to do.

Just because I believe that the procedure shouldn’t be done at my expense doesn’t mean that I hate anyone. 

 

By Divemedic, ago

Debt

 The national debt stands at $27.5 trillion. The first time I blogged about the debt, the US owed $10.6 trillion. That was in 2008. A year ago, I warned that we were borrowing a trillion every ten months. A trillion dollars ago was August. Two trillion dollars ago was May. A year ago, the debt was $23 trillion. The government has borrowed $4.5 trillion in the last year. 

Congress just authorized another $2.5 trillion in spending and COVID stimulus. That means we are guaranteed to have a national debt of $31 trillion by next Christmas. Our economy cannot support this level of spending. 

The wheels are coming off. Find things to store wealth that are not denominated in dollars: gold, Bitcoin, ammo, food. I have a feeling it will be worth much more in the near future. 

By Divemedic, ago