California’s minimum wage is increasing 25% in April, to $20 an hour. Employers are going to raise prices, but that can only be done so much before customers decide to eat at home. That point, it appears, has been reached. So now the layoffs begin. Pizza Hut just laid off 1,200 workers in California. Fatburger has implemented a hiring freeze. Both chains have eliminated paid time off.
It’s almost like those of us who understand economics have been warning of this for years.
Florida Democrats are proposing a law that would require HOAs to donate 15% of their dues money to charities in the community where they are located. The bill text is found here. (pdf warning)
This amounts to a 15% tax placed on the backs of all property owners. What this means is that all HOAs in Florida would have to increase their association dues. This will increase the costs of housing for everyone in the state. Even renters.
Democrats: they hate property owners. They hate America. The only groups that they like are sexual deviants, criminals, and illegal immigrants.
So how do you fight this, should it pass? The law doesn’t specifically say what organizations that the donations have to benefit. This is what it requires:
Donate or use at least 15 percent of the association’s total annual income to benefit the community in the county in which the community served by the association is located.
What constitutes a “benefit the community”? Perhaps using it to donate to a progun group, establishing firearms safety courses, or some other pro-liberty cause. I mean, increasing gun ownership benefits the community, at least in my opinion.
Joe Biden wants to give a tax credit to half a million people so they can buy houses in distressed urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods. This shows a complete lack of understanding how supply and demand works. Even worse, there are Republicans who are buying in to this idiocy.
Let me tell you how this plays out. If you want to skip to the short version, this tax credit will affect the price of homes in the same way that government tax credits and loans have affected college tuition, as well as the way that minimum wage increases and free COVID money affected the price of everything.
Throwing this money at people in the form of a tax credit to encourage home buying didn’t work when it was tried in the 90s, as evidenced by the economic crash of 2010. Throwing money at this simply increases the demand for houses, which at first drives up prices. Then, since this is a one time tax credit, the people who don’t make enough to make the payments get foreclosed on, which causes a ripple effect of other foreclosures and bankruptcies, which increases the supply side and drives down home prices.
Meanwhile, people like me who already own a few homes cash out at the inflated prices and wait for the housing bubble to burst and make a nice profit. I got caught on the bad side of that trade back in 2010 because the housing bubble bursting caused my hours and pay to be cut. This time, I will be ready for it.
Someone bought 5700 ImmunoGen $21 calls yesterday.
This morning, AbbVie announced that they are buying out of $IMGN.
Whoever that is turned a $500k investment into $3.5 million in less than 24 hours.
This is how insider trading works.
Holy shit. Do you want an example of how the people running our nation don’t know or understand anything about economics? Take a look:
Alright, I know that Biden isn’t the one writing this, but it’s still incredible that they equate “inflation coming down” with a reduction in prices. The left is actually clueless on anything. They are fucking idiots.
Say inflation is 8%. Last year’s $100 item now costs $108.
Inflation drops to 2%. Now that item will cost about $110.
The price can’t “go back” to $100 unless inflation is negative.
That isn’t price gouging, it’s math.
This is why we are doomed. Our nation is being run by idiots.
I have been tracking the cost of breakfast at Denny’s over the past 25 years. Not just any Denny’s. The same location- located right near my old fire station. I used to get food there regularly, so it’s a great way to make a valid comparison.
At that Denny’s: 2 strips of bacon, two link sausages, two eggs, and two pancakes is the breakfast that Denny’s calls the “Original Grand Slam.” That breakfast sold for $1.99 in 1997. By 2021, that same breakfast cost $9.49, which works out to an annual inflation rate of 6.7%.
In September of 2023 that same breakfast was $11.99, or a 26.3% increase in the past two and a half years. That’s a 10.5% annual increase.
Just two months later, and that Original Grand Slam is up to $12.99. That is an 8.34% increase in just two months. That corresponds to an annual inflation rate of more than 60 percent. If that were to continue, in a year that same breakfast will cost $19.35.
Look at what $136,000 gets you in San Antonio:
This is what runaway inflation does to us. That works out to more than $226 per square foot.
The FED, as the US central bank, can’t restrict the money in circulation by increasing interest rates as long as the Federal government increases spending by 16% year over year.
Here is the claim being made by the left:
Now for the facts. Here is what it costs to feed ten people for Thanksgiving for the past 33 years:
The cost may be down from last year, but Thanksgiving is still 30% more expensive than it was for Trump’s last Thanksgiving in office.
The yields on Treasury bills hit a 16 year high, and they aren’t done. Inflation in the US is killing confidence in the dollar. China has been engaged in moving away from holding US treasuries. They have sold off many debt holdings, going from holding $1.3 trillion in US debt to just over $800 billion- a downsizing of about 40%.
All of this is making it more and more expensive for the US to pay the interest on the $33 trillion that it already owes, and will soon begin affecting the strength of the dollar. The US will have to create money out of thin air in order to cover this as well as still keep sending money overseas. Expect more inflation to come as a result.
When you read that the US is now paying more in interest than it spends on national defense, you can rest easy knowing the facts:
“The Federal Reserve owns a lot of government debt,” Braun said. “The Treasury does pay interest payments to the Federal Reserve, but then the Federal Reserve turns around and gives it back to the Treasury — that alleviates some of the issues.”
So we are just paying ourselves? Oh, nothing to worry about, then. We can just borrow another $30 trillion. It will be fine. Take a look at what the milestones the debt has hit over the past year or so:
| Date: | Amount of National Debt | |
| October 12 | $33.5 Trillion | |
| September 15 | $33 Trillion | |
| July 11 | $32.5 Trillion | |
| June 15 | $32 Trillion | |
| June 2 | $31.5 Trillion | |
| Sept 30, 2022 | $31 Trillion |
This time in 2019, I was posting that the national debt was at $23 trillion. We have borrowed more than $10 trillion in the past 4 years, with a $2 trillion of that being in the last 4 months. The rate of growth in our national debt is exploding.
The debt is growing far faster than the economy. So much for Keynesian economics. We are fast approaching the point where our national debt is 1.5 times the size of GDP. There is no recovering from this. There is no way to pay this off. The only outcome now is economic collapse. The only question is when.
I don’t understand what is going on and why the Feds are on such a spending spree, but what I do know is that this isn’t good. If you look, the US was borrowing about $2 Trillion a year until June of this year. That was scary enough, but there are some serious problems coming up, as this country (with the exception of the pause in the debt ceiling in August) is now borrowing a trillion bucks about every 60 days. This can’t continue, and by definition, anything that can’t continue, won’t.
There is going to be some major inflation coming. Our currency is being devalued like never before. Stock up on the three B’s: Bullets, Beans, Bullion. They are about to become a whole lot more valuable.