Taking Stock
02/10/22 07:04
She won! Well, her party won anyway. I'm referring to Georgia Meloni and the political party in Italy that will soon elect her as the next Prime Minister of Italy. I think that's the way it works in their parliamentary system. You should hear the left-wing news outlets like CNN. They use adjectives like hard right, extremist, fascist, and right-wing to describe Georgia Meloni. This is what they do. She is, of course, nothing of the kind as far as I know. She believes in the sanctity of life, orderly immigration, the family, God-given genders, and other things that most people consider normal or sane. This, of course, triggers the left, and the fact that she is not a globalist and Climate Change nutjob has many of them losing their bloody minds. Good for her.
The Ev man stopped by yesterday. He gave me a hand with cleaning our refrigerator, or rather he helped me suss out the particulars on YouTube, so I knew precisely how to do what I wanted to do. I had removed most drawers and shelves the previous day and had them out on the driveway, where I washed them out and left them to dry before putting them back in their rightful places. It was mostly easy peasy except for one shelf, which did not lend itself to being removed easily. Everything else was sparkling clean when all was said and done before the Ev man showed up, except that one shelf stood out like a sore thumb. I certainly appreciated his help in getting everything sorted, and I think he felt good about being able to lend his old man a hand. Who doesn't like feeling useful?
I dropped off my 2000 Volvo at the European Auto shop here in town last night. If you recall, I arrived home last week after running a couple of errands, and I just happened to notice that I had a platter-sized puddle of oil beneath my car. I couldn't see where the leak was coming from, although I suspected that the nut on the bottom of the oil pan might have come loose somehow. It was also possible that the oil filter had come loose, and I witnessed the resulting spillage.
A more dire view might have been a blown gasket where the expense of having it fixed would be cost-prohibitive. I added oil to the top of the dipstick and watched to see if the newly added oil might leak out as readily as I put it in, but none of that happened. I checked the nut on the oil pan, which was also snug. Let's hope the fellas at European Auto can make heads or tails of it. It's all about not having to worry about having the car break down when I'm out and about. Fingers crossed.
I can't wait to listen to the War Room radio show this morning with Steve Bannon. Bannon was Trump's Campaign Manager in Trump's 2016 run for the presidency, and he now does a morning radio show on all things political and geopolitical. He's the original populist and nationalist, so he's had a lot to say about political events around the globe, and he's been a huge fan of Georgia Meloni and others like the Brazilian president, whose name escapes me at the moment.
He's got this countdown thing he's doing to the mid-term elections where he feels that he's done his part, and now, if the plan is executed correctly, the Republicans will win 100 seats for a hundred years. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. He also believes that Trump will return to the White House for his third term in 2024, and winning back the House and Senate in 2024 will lay the groundwork for Trump's return. If I had to guess, I'd say Steve will be over the moon about Meloni's win in Italy.
I've got a little food shopping this morning, and then I'll drive to Exeter a little after noon to meet up with the Ev man at the Town Hall, where we'll renew his car registration. Maybe I'll hear back from the fellas at European by then on my Volvo, and perhaps I won't. I'd like to know sooner rather than later that the problem is easily fixed and inexpensive to fix when all is said and done. I've still got the outstanding issue with getting the Ev man's inspection sticker, but the "Check Engine" light problem seems more challenging to diagnose than usual, so it could be a while before all of that gets sorted. Are we having fun yet? Oh, and on top of that, the British pound dropped like a rock against the US dollar overnight, so time will tell if that will affect our stock or bond market here in the States. Did I mention that the Moscow stock market was down some 11% as of an hour ago or so? What the hell is that all about?
How about those political polls? Do you believe any of them? Some are what they refer to as suppression polls. They are designed to get people to stay home on election day. If your candidate looks like they will get a shellacking on election day, why bother voting for them? Right? Other polls oversample democrats to give democrats what appears to be an edge. If you are a democrat, you will want to hire a Democratic polling group to do your polling. They will get you the numbers you want, whether right or wrong. One thing the pollsters say this time is that MAGA voters are a silent majority. What Republican in their right mind would pick up the phone, come out as a Trump supporter, and run the risk of having the FBI show up at your door in a predawn raid? This is Biden's America.
It was so funny. The Ev man was standing at the window at the Exeter Town Hall yesterday when the clerk asked him to sign a car registration form in three different places. He looked at her and, with a straight face, asked if she had a clean pen he could use to sign the form. She rolled her eyes at him and gave him a bit of a smirk to go along with the rolling of the eyes. I think he was trying to be politically correct in this day and age when the rules we used to live by are no longer the rules we now live by, thanks to the dreaded Covid pandemic. If I thought the pandemic was on the wane, I needed no further proof than that which the clerk in the Town Hall gave with a simple twitch or two of her optic nerves. It was hard to tell if it was a serious question being posed by the Ev man, but it nonetheless gave us all a bit of a chuckle. Serious or not, the lot of us had put the Covid nonsense behind us, perhaps for the better—one day at a time.
The stock market here in the US is now lower than it was the day Joey Bumbles Biden was sworn in back in January 2021. That's true of the DJIA, but not sure if that's also true of the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. It's another one of those things that Trump warned us would happen if we elected Joey Biden instead of him in 2020. The indices are so oversold that I'm tempted to see if I can't catch a countertrend rally should one materialize. It's akin to trying to catch a dropped knife these days, but we've had a couple of pretty good countertrend rallies thus far, so maybe it's worth a try. It's also true that stage two in an inflationary bear market is riddled with bear market rallies, so maybe, just maybe, I'm staring one in the face at this very moment. As of yesterday, the indices had dropped maybe 5 or 6 days straight, and I was seeing references in my Twitter feed to "turnaround Tuesday" so I thought there might be an outside chance that we'd see things turn around. Everything ended the day down by about one percent. So much for the hopeful twats on Twitter.
That dumbass Biden was at it again yesterday. He made some assinine comments about gas station owners lowering the price of gas at the pump. I think he thinks that when he says shit like this, people will do what he says because he is, after all, the Supreme Leader. Clearly, he had lost sight of his cue cards, and he was off script for better or worse. Does he even understand that gas stations make their money not by selling gas, since that only gives them pennies per gallon, but on all the other junk gas stations sell? Maybe he thought that if gas prices came down more, he could have at least one thing to point to that might gin up the vote of his base come Election Day. I don't know what that fraud was thinking, but he was clearly off his meds and making a fool of himself, as is his custom. Maybe it tells us something about the red wave coming down the pike. It appears unstoppable, but how wave-like it ends up being is what keeps all we conservatives up at night.
I don't understand all of this Nordstream Pipeline shit. Something happened overnight, and now, according to reports, both pipelines are down. I know the pipeline supplies natural gas to the whole of Europe, but what else does the pipeline deliver? I'm not sure. The Kremlin says that this was an intentional disruption, but who knows how much of that is propaganda and how much of it is true? I saw a video on Twitter this morning dating back to May where Biden was on tape saying something about being able or wanting to take down the pipelines in the event of an invasion by Russia. And now, there are reports of a US aircraft being seen in the vicinity of the so-called leak in the Bering Sea within the last twenty-four hours. I recall thinking when I initially heard Biden comment that it seemed somewhat braggadocious given that the pipeline has nothing to do with the US.
Maybe we should have believed him. It probably wouldn't be the first time he's leaked intelligence, deliberately or otherwise. A more cynical view, not that what we've seen thus far isn't cynical enough might be that Biden and his green new deal zealots have every reason to drive up the price of natural gas so that the US consumer would have to buy solar panels from Joey's buds in Communist China. I'll be interested in seeing where the spot markets in natural gas go today. What happens in Europe, especially when it comes to energy, does not stay in Europe. I heard Bumbles make some other veiled threat the other day to the effect that if Russia annexes any areas in Ukraine, it would be a red line. What the hell does that mean? The citizens of those areas get to vote on any so-called annexation, so how does Bumbles square that circle? There's a lot to chew on here, and none of it is good.
Fast forward 24 hours and it's looking more and more like Biden and his minions were responsible for the Nordstream Pipeline explosion. If it is true, what the hell were the Bidenistas thinking? What on God's green earth made Joey Bumbles Biden think that were he to be found responsible for sabotaging Russia's primary source of income that, Russia wouldn't retaliate in some way, shape, or form? We might as well have sent a ballistic missile into downtown Moscow at rush hour. That's the scale of the idiocy that we see coming out of our White House if the speculation about the US being responsible for this act of terrorism is true. The Pipeline, even though it was being used as a tool by Russia in the war against the West, was also part and parcel of their economic lifeline. The question now is, where does Russia go from here? The question for Americans is, what has this demented fool in the White House gotten us into now?
What calculus has the Biden Regime made that says this was a good idea? Is their plan now to engage Russia in some form of extended conflict such that they will be "forced" to implement martial law in the weeks leading up to the mid-term elections? Putting elections on hold when Biden's democrat party holds all the cards in Congress and the White House has to be a dream for all those democrats facing defeat at the polls in the coming red wave.
This is some serious shit, folks. It will be the most egregious act by any sitting president in the history of our Republic if it turns out that Biden was responsible for this act of terrorism so that he and his fellow democrats could avoid defeat at the polls. I hope I'm wrong. The fact that Tucker on FOX led with this story last night tells me that it's closer to the truth than not. The world now waits while Russia comes to the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the US was behind the destruction of their pipeline. It's more likely that they are already in the process of formulating a response. Duck and cover?
Shares of Apple stock (AAPL) tumbled overnight on the news about demand issues or whatever. All three major indices here in the US are down about 1% in the pre-market. This will be the sixth or seventh down day in a row if this is how the day ends. Ten-year treasuries have been spiking as well, and they were above 4% when I looked a couple of hours ago. That isn't helping. The Bank of England announced this morning that they would buy bonds to staunch the bleeding in their financial markets.
The US markets reversed course on the news, anticipating that the US would implement a similar strategy. It seems a little premature to me to be kicking off a QE (Quantitative Easing) period when QE has been the primary culprit behind our inflation woes, but who am I to question their wisdom on such matters? We'll have to see how our markets respond if and when a Fed head comments on any plans to implement QE here in the states. Easy money is always welcome news until it isn't. Either the Fed is going to do something to deal with our inflation, or it isn't.
The missus and I have been walking down by the ocean every evening for two weeks or so. We're already not looking forward to the time, and it's right around the corner, when we'll have to turn the clocks back, and we'll no longer be able to take that walk. We could walk with a flashlight, but it wouldn't be the same. We'll have to walk earlier in the day or maybe walk on just those days when our schedules are open to doing so. I don't know why we waited so long in the summer season to start walking. I'm guessing it's just one of those things.
We enjoy taking in views of the harbor seals hanging out on the rocky outcroppings, the catch-as-catch-can oil tankers sitting offshore waiting for either the low tide or the availability of a tugboat to come down from Portsmouth, or maybe just the whims of the Captain who's trying to catch a few winks before offloading his cargo and heading back out to sea. How about those three teenagers we saw last night who swam from a distant rocky abutment offshore to a nearby local beach? We weren't sure they would make it (but they did.) We had all we could do not to call the local constabulary to come out and rescue the lads.
The missus sent the Ev man a text last night reminding him of his morning dentist appointment. He never responded, so she went to bed, not knowing one way or the other whether or not he was going to show up for his appointment. I've gotten used to his not responding when we call or text him here and there, but the missus is less understanding. I get it. He sent a text around 5:30 this morning when we were both fast asleep with a simple "yep." That's the Ev man for you. Mister one and done. I had no doubts he'd be at his appointment and said as much to the missus. As far as I can recall, I don't think he's ever not shown up for an appointment. He's not always happy about going to some appointments, but you do what you have to do when it comes to attending to your health. I'm not talking about haircut appointments here.
It looks like that annexation thing I referred to a couple of paragraphs back is going to happen tomorrow (Friday.) Russia will be officially annexing three territories in Ukraine. So, what will Bumbles Biden do about it? Is this one of those things where we must wait, watch, and see what happens when it happens? Will the Bidenistas bring in our allies, or will they do their own thing and not involve the allies? Maybe it's better, considering that there will likely be consequences that none of our allies' fingerprints are on whatever it is that Joey has planned. All of that puts us in direct conflict with another world power that has just as many, if not more, nuclear weapons than we do here in the US. I think Russia has already figured out that we took out their Nordstream pipeline, so it's probably now game-on as far as the Russians go. All of the nonsense in the media you hear from countries worldwide trying to pin the Nordstream issue on the Kremlin is just that. Nonsense.
The US has advised any US citizens in Russia to leave Russian soil at once. This can't be good. I believe that most US citizens in Russia have dual citizenship, but I could be wrong about that. Does the US government think or believe that the US citizens now living in Russia could be conscripted to serve in Russia's war against Ukraine? Do they think there's a possibility that US citizens could be rounded up and held in internment camps similar to what transpired with the Japanese citizens living in America during World War two? I mean, Russia isn't Iran. Right? They won't be tossing Americans off rooftops or maybe even beheading US citizens willy-nilly. And, what does this warning to US citizens have to do with the Nordstream disaster, if anything? It probably has more to do with what Biden plans to do in retaliation for Russia's annexing certain Ukrainian territories than anything else. I don't know, really. I'm just spitballing here.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and took a quick look at my Twitter feed. I saw one tweet about Tesla's in Florida. Florida got slammed with a devastating Category 4 hurricane overnight, and the tweet said something about people starting their Tesla's. It was all tongue-in-cheek since there are some two million people without power in Florida this morning, and if you own a Tesla in one of the affected areas, you are shit out of luck. There is no power, and there isn't likely to be any power for the foreseeable future. It begs the question, though, about the prudence of buying an electric vehicle when owning such a vehicle increases rather than decreases your chances of survival in certain situations. I'm no electrical engineer, but I also have to wonder what happens to a battery-powered vehicle when that vehicle sits in three feet or more of salt water for a week or more. Did I mention that sharks are swimming in Ft Myers, Fla's streets this morning?
I do like Poland Springwater. I love having a bottle or two in the fridge, especially during hot summer days. I think Poland Spring water has a particular taste that differs from similar spring waters sold hereabouts. Poland Spring water is maybe twice the price of other spring waters but well worth it if you ask me. I'm happy to have it on hand when I want a nice glass of water. So, the store where I usually buy it recently ran out of it, and I had to buy a generic brand since having no spring water on hand wasn't an option.
I could tell immediately that the taste of the generic brand was subpar compared to the Poland Spring brand. I suspected as much, which was primarily why I always buy Poland Spring when I can purchase spring water. The missus was skeptical about the differences in tastes when comparing the brands, so we set up a taste test to prove the point. If it turned out that the generic brand was just as good, or almost just as good, I told the missus that we could stop paying twice the price for the Poland Spring, and that would be that. I didn't dilly dally when she put the two cups in front of me for the taste test. There was no sniffing around the mouth of the cup; there was no holding the cup up to the light to look for this or that; I just took a drink the way I would take any other drink any other day of the week. Without hesitation, I declared my glass as the rightful Poland Spring water. I was right, of course.
The generic spring water tasted a little bit to me like tap water. I didn't need to taste the generic stuff to know I was drinking the true Poland Springwater. The missus reminded me that I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right. I wouldn't say that she was dismissive, but she was dismissive. I doubled down and told her that the hastiness with which I made my decision was all she needed to know about my confidence in my decision. As I sit here thinking about it all, I think it might be helpful to repeat the test for her. We'll see if she can tell the difference. What if she can't tell the difference? Do I buy her the less expensive generic stuff from here on in? Would she be offended at the very suggestion? She uses a lot of her water to make tea, so she doesn't need the good stuff to do that—food for thought.
It's hard to believe that October is coming in a couple of days. Where the hell did the month of September go? I should get out and mow my lawn today. The Red Maples in my front yard are already starting to shed their leaves, so I can mulch them up with the mower. It will make for fewer leaves to rake when the time comes to rake. I stopped putting out bird food for the summer, so I should start to think about refilling the feeders so the birds have something of an orientation to the feeder when the snow starts to fall. I know, I know. I'm overthinking this bird feeder thing. Is it too soon to take the furniture off the back deck? I've put off taking our air conditioner out, but I think I can probably do that now without worrying that we're going to get one or two hot days where I'll regret having removed the air conditioner prematurely. Oh, and we probably ought to reach out to a friend of ours who has a place somewhere around Tampa, Florida. Tampa was ground zero, give or take, for the hurricane that slammed Florida yesterday. Is there anything we can do to help?
My bike riding has been splotchy in September, to say the least. There was our vacation when I didn't ride at all, and then we had a few rainy days during September when I didn't ride for obvious reasons. September is really one of my favorite months to ride for a couple of reasons. One reason is that the summer crowds are gone, and I seemingly have the road to myself, along with a handful of other hard-core riders. Hard-core might be something of an exaggeration. Let's just call them what they are: regulars. I generally don't have eye contact with other riders and that's by choice. I'm not looking to forge relationships, and I'm not wanting to be one of those guys who feels the need to wave to every other rider like we're in some kind of fucking brotherhood or something.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think they're regulars if only because they're out there riding when I'm riding and when every other fair weather rider has long since departed for God only knows where. The other reason I like to ride in September is because of the weather. It's a bitch riding in the extreme heat of the summer, and I can recall a handful of days this summer when the temperatures were in the nineties when riding could have been dangerous. I mean, who the hell needs to have a heat stroke when you're out there just trying to have a little fun and get in a modicum of exercise? So, yeah. The temperatures are comfortably in the seventies now, and the breathing, as they say, is easier.
I rode yesterday, and I swear to God that I didn't know where all the energy I was feeling came from. It was, if nothing, relentless. I probably could have done another loop, but habits being what they are, I did not. You can probably tell from reading this that I'm still feeling a little bit of that residual energy even now, a day later. October will be different. I'll need to add a couple of layers to stay warm while riding and I'll need to account somewhat for Daylight Savings Time. Feets don't fail me now?
The presidential elections in Brazil are on Sunday. I'm rooting for Bolsonaro to win. His opponent is an avowed communist from what I read here and there, and I worry that Bolsonaro's opponent, should he win, will forge an even tighter relationship with the Communist Chinese. Brazil is one of the last true democracies in that part of the world and it would be a bloody shame to see its governance handed over to the leftists. And, make no mistake about it, were Bolsonaro's party to lose, you can bet your bottom dollar that Brazil's vast resources would be plundered by the Chinese. That would be bad for the Brazilians.
I'm shooting from the hip here so don't hold me to anything if you think I'm straying too far from what passes for the truth. I heard that Bolsonao is threatening war of some kind should the leftists steal the election. What does that even mean? Is this a war worth fighting should it come to that? Would anyone put it past Biden to send in a battalion or two to prop up the leftist in this battle? It's hard to believe that we have a president of the US who speaks disparagingly of election winners around the globe when he and his party don't agree with their politics. Unless you're a leftist, you're a dog-faced lying pony soldier.
It's been another meltdown of a week in the financial markets. Just when you thought the markets couldn't go any lower, they go lower. What in the hell is going on? Is this all due to the raising of interest rates here in the US? Were markets so terribly inflated due to interference from the Fed that they needed some serious unwinding before market forces and market forces alone determine real interest rates? I think we're not done here, folks. I think we could go lower, a lot lower. We've not seen any hint of capitulation thus far, but we are now seeing the markets come for the big boys. That's what they do in bear markets. They come for the Apples. They come for the Nike's. They come for the Teslas. It's all a matter of price and time now. And, just so you know, this could go on for a while. We also have a reverse wealth effect on our hands when markets lose the kind of value that they've lost year-to-date. NASDAQ is down >30%, S&P down >24%, and the Dow is just down.
A wealth effect is what you have when people see their stock portfolios growing hand over fist month in and month out. It gives the consumer the confidence he or she needs to go out into the marketplace and spend money on things like cars, homes, and other tangibles and intangibles. If you're sitting on a pile of stocks and bonds that are growing exponentially, you can afford to take additional risks here and there, and, should one or more of those risks go south, not to worry because you have a portfolio that is kicking butt and taking names. You get my drift. When things stop growing hand over fist, and when you actually start losing money, it's a reverse wealth effect. You start to worry about things like being able to meet your financial obligations. You can't stop looking at your portfolio because you're simply not accustomed to seeing so much red ink. You're wondering how far it's going to go and how long it's going to last. It always comes back. Right?
Then, you start to hear about layoffs, and you think to yourself that it can't happen to you. Your spouse keeps nagging you to get out of the financial markets because he or she can't bear to see the money you've worked so hard for just disappear. Stories abound in the media about threats of thermonuclear war, food shortages, people losing their homes because they can't keep up with the increases in rent and mortgage payments, and all you hear coming from the people you sent to Washington to represent you is that we need more inclusion, equity, and diversity in our institutions. The Vice President of the United States comes out and states unequivocably that people of color will be the first recipients of monies to be distributed in the wake of the worst hurricane in Florida's history. Can it get any worse? How comfortable are you now with spending money, any money at all, not knowing where all this is going?
We were out and about with the Ev man yesterday. We planned to go to a farmstand close to where he lives, so we dropped by to pick him up so he could join us. After stopping at Jersey Mike's to get the Ev man a sandwich, we were off to the farm stand. It was a compound of sorts that looked like it was run by a bunch of Rastafarians or maybe hippys depending on your particular point of view. It looked like less of a farmstand and more of a music venue, but we bumped around and looked and this and that before leaving.
The store on the premises looked interesting, but it was also a little too chaotic looking for my tastes. They had too many things packed into a small area, and the feng shui just wasn't cutting the mustard. In another place and time, I might have bought some sausages and homemade bread or maybe some of their homegrown chicken. I think we were on the premises for maybe 30 minutes. Just as we were leaving, we noticed a flurry of what looked like houseflies that appeared out of nowhere. They followed us into our car, and we did our best to rid ourselves of them but to no avail. What the hell was that all about? It was right out of a goddamn Steven King novel. Jesus Christ!
The Ev man stopped by yesterday. He gave me a hand with cleaning our refrigerator, or rather he helped me suss out the particulars on YouTube, so I knew precisely how to do what I wanted to do. I had removed most drawers and shelves the previous day and had them out on the driveway, where I washed them out and left them to dry before putting them back in their rightful places. It was mostly easy peasy except for one shelf, which did not lend itself to being removed easily. Everything else was sparkling clean when all was said and done before the Ev man showed up, except that one shelf stood out like a sore thumb. I certainly appreciated his help in getting everything sorted, and I think he felt good about being able to lend his old man a hand. Who doesn't like feeling useful?
I dropped off my 2000 Volvo at the European Auto shop here in town last night. If you recall, I arrived home last week after running a couple of errands, and I just happened to notice that I had a platter-sized puddle of oil beneath my car. I couldn't see where the leak was coming from, although I suspected that the nut on the bottom of the oil pan might have come loose somehow. It was also possible that the oil filter had come loose, and I witnessed the resulting spillage.
A more dire view might have been a blown gasket where the expense of having it fixed would be cost-prohibitive. I added oil to the top of the dipstick and watched to see if the newly added oil might leak out as readily as I put it in, but none of that happened. I checked the nut on the oil pan, which was also snug. Let's hope the fellas at European Auto can make heads or tails of it. It's all about not having to worry about having the car break down when I'm out and about. Fingers crossed.
I can't wait to listen to the War Room radio show this morning with Steve Bannon. Bannon was Trump's Campaign Manager in Trump's 2016 run for the presidency, and he now does a morning radio show on all things political and geopolitical. He's the original populist and nationalist, so he's had a lot to say about political events around the globe, and he's been a huge fan of Georgia Meloni and others like the Brazilian president, whose name escapes me at the moment.
He's got this countdown thing he's doing to the mid-term elections where he feels that he's done his part, and now, if the plan is executed correctly, the Republicans will win 100 seats for a hundred years. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. He also believes that Trump will return to the White House for his third term in 2024, and winning back the House and Senate in 2024 will lay the groundwork for Trump's return. If I had to guess, I'd say Steve will be over the moon about Meloni's win in Italy.
I've got a little food shopping this morning, and then I'll drive to Exeter a little after noon to meet up with the Ev man at the Town Hall, where we'll renew his car registration. Maybe I'll hear back from the fellas at European by then on my Volvo, and perhaps I won't. I'd like to know sooner rather than later that the problem is easily fixed and inexpensive to fix when all is said and done. I've still got the outstanding issue with getting the Ev man's inspection sticker, but the "Check Engine" light problem seems more challenging to diagnose than usual, so it could be a while before all of that gets sorted. Are we having fun yet? Oh, and on top of that, the British pound dropped like a rock against the US dollar overnight, so time will tell if that will affect our stock or bond market here in the States. Did I mention that the Moscow stock market was down some 11% as of an hour ago or so? What the hell is that all about?
How about those political polls? Do you believe any of them? Some are what they refer to as suppression polls. They are designed to get people to stay home on election day. If your candidate looks like they will get a shellacking on election day, why bother voting for them? Right? Other polls oversample democrats to give democrats what appears to be an edge. If you are a democrat, you will want to hire a Democratic polling group to do your polling. They will get you the numbers you want, whether right or wrong. One thing the pollsters say this time is that MAGA voters are a silent majority. What Republican in their right mind would pick up the phone, come out as a Trump supporter, and run the risk of having the FBI show up at your door in a predawn raid? This is Biden's America.
It was so funny. The Ev man was standing at the window at the Exeter Town Hall yesterday when the clerk asked him to sign a car registration form in three different places. He looked at her and, with a straight face, asked if she had a clean pen he could use to sign the form. She rolled her eyes at him and gave him a bit of a smirk to go along with the rolling of the eyes. I think he was trying to be politically correct in this day and age when the rules we used to live by are no longer the rules we now live by, thanks to the dreaded Covid pandemic. If I thought the pandemic was on the wane, I needed no further proof than that which the clerk in the Town Hall gave with a simple twitch or two of her optic nerves. It was hard to tell if it was a serious question being posed by the Ev man, but it nonetheless gave us all a bit of a chuckle. Serious or not, the lot of us had put the Covid nonsense behind us, perhaps for the better—one day at a time.
The stock market here in the US is now lower than it was the day Joey Bumbles Biden was sworn in back in January 2021. That's true of the DJIA, but not sure if that's also true of the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. It's another one of those things that Trump warned us would happen if we elected Joey Biden instead of him in 2020. The indices are so oversold that I'm tempted to see if I can't catch a countertrend rally should one materialize. It's akin to trying to catch a dropped knife these days, but we've had a couple of pretty good countertrend rallies thus far, so maybe it's worth a try. It's also true that stage two in an inflationary bear market is riddled with bear market rallies, so maybe, just maybe, I'm staring one in the face at this very moment. As of yesterday, the indices had dropped maybe 5 or 6 days straight, and I was seeing references in my Twitter feed to "turnaround Tuesday" so I thought there might be an outside chance that we'd see things turn around. Everything ended the day down by about one percent. So much for the hopeful twats on Twitter.
That dumbass Biden was at it again yesterday. He made some assinine comments about gas station owners lowering the price of gas at the pump. I think he thinks that when he says shit like this, people will do what he says because he is, after all, the Supreme Leader. Clearly, he had lost sight of his cue cards, and he was off script for better or worse. Does he even understand that gas stations make their money not by selling gas, since that only gives them pennies per gallon, but on all the other junk gas stations sell? Maybe he thought that if gas prices came down more, he could have at least one thing to point to that might gin up the vote of his base come Election Day. I don't know what that fraud was thinking, but he was clearly off his meds and making a fool of himself, as is his custom. Maybe it tells us something about the red wave coming down the pike. It appears unstoppable, but how wave-like it ends up being is what keeps all we conservatives up at night.
I don't understand all of this Nordstream Pipeline shit. Something happened overnight, and now, according to reports, both pipelines are down. I know the pipeline supplies natural gas to the whole of Europe, but what else does the pipeline deliver? I'm not sure. The Kremlin says that this was an intentional disruption, but who knows how much of that is propaganda and how much of it is true? I saw a video on Twitter this morning dating back to May where Biden was on tape saying something about being able or wanting to take down the pipelines in the event of an invasion by Russia. And now, there are reports of a US aircraft being seen in the vicinity of the so-called leak in the Bering Sea within the last twenty-four hours. I recall thinking when I initially heard Biden comment that it seemed somewhat braggadocious given that the pipeline has nothing to do with the US.
Maybe we should have believed him. It probably wouldn't be the first time he's leaked intelligence, deliberately or otherwise. A more cynical view, not that what we've seen thus far isn't cynical enough might be that Biden and his green new deal zealots have every reason to drive up the price of natural gas so that the US consumer would have to buy solar panels from Joey's buds in Communist China. I'll be interested in seeing where the spot markets in natural gas go today. What happens in Europe, especially when it comes to energy, does not stay in Europe. I heard Bumbles make some other veiled threat the other day to the effect that if Russia annexes any areas in Ukraine, it would be a red line. What the hell does that mean? The citizens of those areas get to vote on any so-called annexation, so how does Bumbles square that circle? There's a lot to chew on here, and none of it is good.
Fast forward 24 hours and it's looking more and more like Biden and his minions were responsible for the Nordstream Pipeline explosion. If it is true, what the hell were the Bidenistas thinking? What on God's green earth made Joey Bumbles Biden think that were he to be found responsible for sabotaging Russia's primary source of income that, Russia wouldn't retaliate in some way, shape, or form? We might as well have sent a ballistic missile into downtown Moscow at rush hour. That's the scale of the idiocy that we see coming out of our White House if the speculation about the US being responsible for this act of terrorism is true. The Pipeline, even though it was being used as a tool by Russia in the war against the West, was also part and parcel of their economic lifeline. The question now is, where does Russia go from here? The question for Americans is, what has this demented fool in the White House gotten us into now?
What calculus has the Biden Regime made that says this was a good idea? Is their plan now to engage Russia in some form of extended conflict such that they will be "forced" to implement martial law in the weeks leading up to the mid-term elections? Putting elections on hold when Biden's democrat party holds all the cards in Congress and the White House has to be a dream for all those democrats facing defeat at the polls in the coming red wave.
This is some serious shit, folks. It will be the most egregious act by any sitting president in the history of our Republic if it turns out that Biden was responsible for this act of terrorism so that he and his fellow democrats could avoid defeat at the polls. I hope I'm wrong. The fact that Tucker on FOX led with this story last night tells me that it's closer to the truth than not. The world now waits while Russia comes to the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the US was behind the destruction of their pipeline. It's more likely that they are already in the process of formulating a response. Duck and cover?
Shares of Apple stock (AAPL) tumbled overnight on the news about demand issues or whatever. All three major indices here in the US are down about 1% in the pre-market. This will be the sixth or seventh down day in a row if this is how the day ends. Ten-year treasuries have been spiking as well, and they were above 4% when I looked a couple of hours ago. That isn't helping. The Bank of England announced this morning that they would buy bonds to staunch the bleeding in their financial markets.
The US markets reversed course on the news, anticipating that the US would implement a similar strategy. It seems a little premature to me to be kicking off a QE (Quantitative Easing) period when QE has been the primary culprit behind our inflation woes, but who am I to question their wisdom on such matters? We'll have to see how our markets respond if and when a Fed head comments on any plans to implement QE here in the states. Easy money is always welcome news until it isn't. Either the Fed is going to do something to deal with our inflation, or it isn't.
The missus and I have been walking down by the ocean every evening for two weeks or so. We're already not looking forward to the time, and it's right around the corner, when we'll have to turn the clocks back, and we'll no longer be able to take that walk. We could walk with a flashlight, but it wouldn't be the same. We'll have to walk earlier in the day or maybe walk on just those days when our schedules are open to doing so. I don't know why we waited so long in the summer season to start walking. I'm guessing it's just one of those things.
We enjoy taking in views of the harbor seals hanging out on the rocky outcroppings, the catch-as-catch-can oil tankers sitting offshore waiting for either the low tide or the availability of a tugboat to come down from Portsmouth, or maybe just the whims of the Captain who's trying to catch a few winks before offloading his cargo and heading back out to sea. How about those three teenagers we saw last night who swam from a distant rocky abutment offshore to a nearby local beach? We weren't sure they would make it (but they did.) We had all we could do not to call the local constabulary to come out and rescue the lads.
The missus sent the Ev man a text last night reminding him of his morning dentist appointment. He never responded, so she went to bed, not knowing one way or the other whether or not he was going to show up for his appointment. I've gotten used to his not responding when we call or text him here and there, but the missus is less understanding. I get it. He sent a text around 5:30 this morning when we were both fast asleep with a simple "yep." That's the Ev man for you. Mister one and done. I had no doubts he'd be at his appointment and said as much to the missus. As far as I can recall, I don't think he's ever not shown up for an appointment. He's not always happy about going to some appointments, but you do what you have to do when it comes to attending to your health. I'm not talking about haircut appointments here.
It looks like that annexation thing I referred to a couple of paragraphs back is going to happen tomorrow (Friday.) Russia will be officially annexing three territories in Ukraine. So, what will Bumbles Biden do about it? Is this one of those things where we must wait, watch, and see what happens when it happens? Will the Bidenistas bring in our allies, or will they do their own thing and not involve the allies? Maybe it's better, considering that there will likely be consequences that none of our allies' fingerprints are on whatever it is that Joey has planned. All of that puts us in direct conflict with another world power that has just as many, if not more, nuclear weapons than we do here in the US. I think Russia has already figured out that we took out their Nordstream pipeline, so it's probably now game-on as far as the Russians go. All of the nonsense in the media you hear from countries worldwide trying to pin the Nordstream issue on the Kremlin is just that. Nonsense.
The US has advised any US citizens in Russia to leave Russian soil at once. This can't be good. I believe that most US citizens in Russia have dual citizenship, but I could be wrong about that. Does the US government think or believe that the US citizens now living in Russia could be conscripted to serve in Russia's war against Ukraine? Do they think there's a possibility that US citizens could be rounded up and held in internment camps similar to what transpired with the Japanese citizens living in America during World War two? I mean, Russia isn't Iran. Right? They won't be tossing Americans off rooftops or maybe even beheading US citizens willy-nilly. And, what does this warning to US citizens have to do with the Nordstream disaster, if anything? It probably has more to do with what Biden plans to do in retaliation for Russia's annexing certain Ukrainian territories than anything else. I don't know, really. I'm just spitballing here.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and took a quick look at my Twitter feed. I saw one tweet about Tesla's in Florida. Florida got slammed with a devastating Category 4 hurricane overnight, and the tweet said something about people starting their Tesla's. It was all tongue-in-cheek since there are some two million people without power in Florida this morning, and if you own a Tesla in one of the affected areas, you are shit out of luck. There is no power, and there isn't likely to be any power for the foreseeable future. It begs the question, though, about the prudence of buying an electric vehicle when owning such a vehicle increases rather than decreases your chances of survival in certain situations. I'm no electrical engineer, but I also have to wonder what happens to a battery-powered vehicle when that vehicle sits in three feet or more of salt water for a week or more. Did I mention that sharks are swimming in Ft Myers, Fla's streets this morning?
I do like Poland Springwater. I love having a bottle or two in the fridge, especially during hot summer days. I think Poland Spring water has a particular taste that differs from similar spring waters sold hereabouts. Poland Spring water is maybe twice the price of other spring waters but well worth it if you ask me. I'm happy to have it on hand when I want a nice glass of water. So, the store where I usually buy it recently ran out of it, and I had to buy a generic brand since having no spring water on hand wasn't an option.
I could tell immediately that the taste of the generic brand was subpar compared to the Poland Spring brand. I suspected as much, which was primarily why I always buy Poland Spring when I can purchase spring water. The missus was skeptical about the differences in tastes when comparing the brands, so we set up a taste test to prove the point. If it turned out that the generic brand was just as good, or almost just as good, I told the missus that we could stop paying twice the price for the Poland Spring, and that would be that. I didn't dilly dally when she put the two cups in front of me for the taste test. There was no sniffing around the mouth of the cup; there was no holding the cup up to the light to look for this or that; I just took a drink the way I would take any other drink any other day of the week. Without hesitation, I declared my glass as the rightful Poland Spring water. I was right, of course.
The generic spring water tasted a little bit to me like tap water. I didn't need to taste the generic stuff to know I was drinking the true Poland Springwater. The missus reminded me that I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right. I wouldn't say that she was dismissive, but she was dismissive. I doubled down and told her that the hastiness with which I made my decision was all she needed to know about my confidence in my decision. As I sit here thinking about it all, I think it might be helpful to repeat the test for her. We'll see if she can tell the difference. What if she can't tell the difference? Do I buy her the less expensive generic stuff from here on in? Would she be offended at the very suggestion? She uses a lot of her water to make tea, so she doesn't need the good stuff to do that—food for thought.
It's hard to believe that October is coming in a couple of days. Where the hell did the month of September go? I should get out and mow my lawn today. The Red Maples in my front yard are already starting to shed their leaves, so I can mulch them up with the mower. It will make for fewer leaves to rake when the time comes to rake. I stopped putting out bird food for the summer, so I should start to think about refilling the feeders so the birds have something of an orientation to the feeder when the snow starts to fall. I know, I know. I'm overthinking this bird feeder thing. Is it too soon to take the furniture off the back deck? I've put off taking our air conditioner out, but I think I can probably do that now without worrying that we're going to get one or two hot days where I'll regret having removed the air conditioner prematurely. Oh, and we probably ought to reach out to a friend of ours who has a place somewhere around Tampa, Florida. Tampa was ground zero, give or take, for the hurricane that slammed Florida yesterday. Is there anything we can do to help?
My bike riding has been splotchy in September, to say the least. There was our vacation when I didn't ride at all, and then we had a few rainy days during September when I didn't ride for obvious reasons. September is really one of my favorite months to ride for a couple of reasons. One reason is that the summer crowds are gone, and I seemingly have the road to myself, along with a handful of other hard-core riders. Hard-core might be something of an exaggeration. Let's just call them what they are: regulars. I generally don't have eye contact with other riders and that's by choice. I'm not looking to forge relationships, and I'm not wanting to be one of those guys who feels the need to wave to every other rider like we're in some kind of fucking brotherhood or something.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think they're regulars if only because they're out there riding when I'm riding and when every other fair weather rider has long since departed for God only knows where. The other reason I like to ride in September is because of the weather. It's a bitch riding in the extreme heat of the summer, and I can recall a handful of days this summer when the temperatures were in the nineties when riding could have been dangerous. I mean, who the hell needs to have a heat stroke when you're out there just trying to have a little fun and get in a modicum of exercise? So, yeah. The temperatures are comfortably in the seventies now, and the breathing, as they say, is easier.
I rode yesterday, and I swear to God that I didn't know where all the energy I was feeling came from. It was, if nothing, relentless. I probably could have done another loop, but habits being what they are, I did not. You can probably tell from reading this that I'm still feeling a little bit of that residual energy even now, a day later. October will be different. I'll need to add a couple of layers to stay warm while riding and I'll need to account somewhat for Daylight Savings Time. Feets don't fail me now?
The presidential elections in Brazil are on Sunday. I'm rooting for Bolsonaro to win. His opponent is an avowed communist from what I read here and there, and I worry that Bolsonaro's opponent, should he win, will forge an even tighter relationship with the Communist Chinese. Brazil is one of the last true democracies in that part of the world and it would be a bloody shame to see its governance handed over to the leftists. And, make no mistake about it, were Bolsonaro's party to lose, you can bet your bottom dollar that Brazil's vast resources would be plundered by the Chinese. That would be bad for the Brazilians.
I'm shooting from the hip here so don't hold me to anything if you think I'm straying too far from what passes for the truth. I heard that Bolsonao is threatening war of some kind should the leftists steal the election. What does that even mean? Is this a war worth fighting should it come to that? Would anyone put it past Biden to send in a battalion or two to prop up the leftist in this battle? It's hard to believe that we have a president of the US who speaks disparagingly of election winners around the globe when he and his party don't agree with their politics. Unless you're a leftist, you're a dog-faced lying pony soldier.
It's been another meltdown of a week in the financial markets. Just when you thought the markets couldn't go any lower, they go lower. What in the hell is going on? Is this all due to the raising of interest rates here in the US? Were markets so terribly inflated due to interference from the Fed that they needed some serious unwinding before market forces and market forces alone determine real interest rates? I think we're not done here, folks. I think we could go lower, a lot lower. We've not seen any hint of capitulation thus far, but we are now seeing the markets come for the big boys. That's what they do in bear markets. They come for the Apples. They come for the Nike's. They come for the Teslas. It's all a matter of price and time now. And, just so you know, this could go on for a while. We also have a reverse wealth effect on our hands when markets lose the kind of value that they've lost year-to-date. NASDAQ is down >30%, S&P down >24%, and the Dow is just down.
A wealth effect is what you have when people see their stock portfolios growing hand over fist month in and month out. It gives the consumer the confidence he or she needs to go out into the marketplace and spend money on things like cars, homes, and other tangibles and intangibles. If you're sitting on a pile of stocks and bonds that are growing exponentially, you can afford to take additional risks here and there, and, should one or more of those risks go south, not to worry because you have a portfolio that is kicking butt and taking names. You get my drift. When things stop growing hand over fist, and when you actually start losing money, it's a reverse wealth effect. You start to worry about things like being able to meet your financial obligations. You can't stop looking at your portfolio because you're simply not accustomed to seeing so much red ink. You're wondering how far it's going to go and how long it's going to last. It always comes back. Right?
Then, you start to hear about layoffs, and you think to yourself that it can't happen to you. Your spouse keeps nagging you to get out of the financial markets because he or she can't bear to see the money you've worked so hard for just disappear. Stories abound in the media about threats of thermonuclear war, food shortages, people losing their homes because they can't keep up with the increases in rent and mortgage payments, and all you hear coming from the people you sent to Washington to represent you is that we need more inclusion, equity, and diversity in our institutions. The Vice President of the United States comes out and states unequivocably that people of color will be the first recipients of monies to be distributed in the wake of the worst hurricane in Florida's history. Can it get any worse? How comfortable are you now with spending money, any money at all, not knowing where all this is going?
We were out and about with the Ev man yesterday. We planned to go to a farmstand close to where he lives, so we dropped by to pick him up so he could join us. After stopping at Jersey Mike's to get the Ev man a sandwich, we were off to the farm stand. It was a compound of sorts that looked like it was run by a bunch of Rastafarians or maybe hippys depending on your particular point of view. It looked like less of a farmstand and more of a music venue, but we bumped around and looked and this and that before leaving.
The store on the premises looked interesting, but it was also a little too chaotic looking for my tastes. They had too many things packed into a small area, and the feng shui just wasn't cutting the mustard. In another place and time, I might have bought some sausages and homemade bread or maybe some of their homegrown chicken. I think we were on the premises for maybe 30 minutes. Just as we were leaving, we noticed a flurry of what looked like houseflies that appeared out of nowhere. They followed us into our car, and we did our best to rid ourselves of them but to no avail. What the hell was that all about? It was right out of a goddamn Steven King novel. Jesus Christ!