Inflation? What Inflation?

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Breaking news (although check with your checkbook, previously “broken”) here’s the latest on inflation in the Labor Department’s Cost of Surviving report just out:

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.2 percent in December on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.3 percent in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.3 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The indexes for gasoline, shelter, and medical care all rose in December, accounting for most of the increase in the seasonally adjusted all items index. The gasoline index increased 2.8 percent in December. Other major energy component indexes were mixed, and the energy index rose 1.4 percent. The food index rose 0.2 percent in December with the indexes for both food at home and food away from home increasing over the month.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.1 percent in December after increasing 0.2 percent in November. Along with the indexes for shelter and medical care, the indexes for apparel, motor vehicle insurance, recreation, and new vehicles all increased in December. The indexes for used cars and trucks, household furnishings and operations, and airline fares were among those to decline.

You do better with pictures?

In the screwy world of the Fed (don’t get me started) they look at the All Items less Food and Energy index.  Up 2.3 % year over year.  Which sounds like inflation is coming…yet bonds still suck.  What gives?

Fed’s just making-up money on the fly.  How much from the NY Fed Repo Depot this morning?  $ 82 -billion.  That’s $518 each for every working person in America, if you do the calc’s on it.

We have to wonder if John Grisham, Jackie Collins, or Clive Cussler, all accomplished fiction authors, aren’t coaching of the CPI authors.

You see, we go to the store about once a week.  And I assure you, our REAL cost of food (as one example) has escalated much higher and faster than such federal reports would belie. Wait…I think that’s what going on here.  Yes, a lot of  belying..

Optimism Gets Tempered, Though

Press release from the National Federation of Independent Business:

“WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 14, 2020) — Small business optimism ended the year historically strong, with a reading of 102.7, down two points from November. Seven of 10 components fell, two improved, and one was unchanged. An increased number of small business owners reported better business conditions and expect higher nominal sales in the next three months. While frequency of plans to raise compensation fell two points, it remains one of the highest readings in the survey’s 46-year history. Small businesses continued to hire and create new jobs with actual job creation matching November’s reading, the highest since May.

“December marked the end of another banner year for the small business economy, as owners took full advantage of strong consumer spending, and federal tax and regulatory relief,” said NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg. “2020 is starting out with a solid foundation for continued growth, two years into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that’s providing fuel to grow small businesses and their workforce.”

Dear Digital Mob Rule Uprisers (and other mainly democrat crap-stirrers): Can’t ya’ll read?  I mean WTF?

Even more worries for the digital mob as China Agrees To Buy More Cars, Airplanes, Energy From US In Phase 1 Trade Deal.  Success is wrong, right?

In the Shorts

We’ll keep it simple for those in the slow lane:

Megxit Mania: A daily dose in Who will pay for Harry and Meghan’s security? Canada says discussions are underway.  We gotta wonder about the future of England when they can drive off a young couple, as they have.  Yet they can’t drive off the prick in Brussels.  Doesn’t make sense to us.   One further note:  Megxit ties Mullahs in our morning headline count.  Just gotten piss Tehran off.

Let’s all Financialize Climate, shall we?  NT Times DealBook: BlackRock Puts Climate Change Center Stage.  Better scam that Bitcoin…though not by much.

Didn’t Disney get there first, Dept: Brain Freeze: Russian Firm Offers Path to Immortality for a Fee.  Oh, and no, Disney did not end up on ice. Mandalla Effect, maybe?

Yarns of the Crooked Press

How long have we bemoaned the fact that the mainstream media is crooked and largely run by leftist (*and  lately mullah) sympathizers?  Try not to look surprised, then, as you read “TV’s Trump News: Three-Fourths Impeachment and 93% Negative.”

Yeah…best employment levels ever for most all minorities, soaring stock market, coming to terms with the border mess…so yeah: Let’s impeach the prime mover behind all this and elect a questionable jokewhohaunts us or the guy who should have remained a carpenter? GMAFB, people!

This is like getting a paper cut on one hand, and cutting off the other in the interest of “fairness.”  So you bleed out…isn’t that the “right” thing to do these days?

(Hint: of course not! You’d have to be an idiot…oops…I see the error of my ways.)

Glaciers and Climate Hype

As the leading “climate skepticoloogist” in East Texas, I have to pass on the story that popped up in our (irreverent) “Comments” section:  It’s in the NY Post under the headline “The telling tale of Glacier National Park’s ‘gone by 2020’ signs .”

The signs inconveniently made up some years back by some True Believer in Climate Lies embed in gov’t.  Signs predicted the Glaciers in Glacier Park would all be “gone by 2020.”  We regret to inform the Parks people, there are still 29 glaciers and they need to update their fear-mongering distro list and make sure it gets read this time.

We note the Post rather cowardly puts the Opinion label on this.  Seems to us, they really ought to put the Opinion label on all climate  hot air and hype stories.

Oh, speaking of which:  I happen to be reading Graham Hancock’s America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization and it’s absolutely a first -rate read.

A Trip to the Eye Doc

After a first-rate visit to the PCP (primary-care provider; you’ll learn oldster insurance-speak when you grow-up) Friday, Monday’s follow-on was a visit to my first-rate Eye doc up in Tyler, Texas was great, as well..

Several items of interest, but I will try to keep it short.

First, Monday was “People driving white cars are Idiots Day.”  Since people driving white cars Monday were all over the road, not particularly inclined to fully stop at intersections, and prone to weaving in and out of lanes to the peril of innocents nearby.

Second:  I’ve requested (and we’ll see how this goes) that because I have optical rosacea, I’ve been taking low does doxycylene for a while and yes, it helps – SOME.  However, recently on PubMed, there has been a paper saying Doxy works as well as Azithromycin.

Which matters, why?

Found another “newish” paper that involves something call DAV therapy to root out cancer cells.  Short for Doxycylene, Azithromycin, and Vitamin C.  More applicable to my old eyes is the method of action  is different for each of the antibiotics:  As one of the cites explains in its Abstract: “Azithromycin inhibits the large mitochondrial ribosome as an off-target side-effect. In addition, Doxycycline inhibits the small mitochondrial ribosome as an off-target side-effect. “

Which offered (to my lame-brain) the notion that the  rosacea effect may be a “mixture” of irritants that might respond to the combination, rather than singular med.

I asked my doc “ So, do other people come in all the time with treatment ides and support PubMed cites?”  That got a smile out of him.  I’m guessing not  no, but more like  hell no.  And a lot of that has to do, I figure, with people being (check as many as applicable): lazy, dumb, stupid (a next-door neighbor of dumb), victims, ignorant, not-self-directed, and/or believers in “experts are always right.”  Ever count airplane crashes?  Experts are not always right.

We’ll see how my request (lower doxy, add azithro) goes.  In today’s litigious world, even what makes perfect sense (due to different method of actions) may not make it past whatever the internal reviews are to vary from the Gospel According to Lawyers.

As I’ve today you previously, Lawyers and Insurance Companies actually practice a good bit of Medicine, these days.  And some ornery old sonofabitchinthewoods doesn’t care for such “out of bounds” practice of medicine without a license, defended I’m sure by the professional associations and K Street payoff artists.

Notwithstanding, the eyes are OK, with tweaks to the eye-glasses.  And stable enough so the new “cross-linking” technology  may not make sense ($6,000 per eye is the insurance billing price), but more study and thinking to come on this.

It is paradoxical: The eyes are (easily) good enough to drive, but that raises the blood pressure, lol…

Cross-linking – if you haven’t heard of it –  stabilizes the cornea by putting riboflavin on ’em, then exposing the properly goo’ed up eye to UV light.  Not  quite like curing in a 3D resin printer,  or that awful-tasting tooth resin, but the UV binds the riboflavin to the eye cross-linking with the cells and slows degenerative corneal disease a good bit.  (Glad you asked?)

One other “Gee, this aging sh*tz a bitch” in passing:  New book out by Suzanne Sommers is on Elaine’s  Kindle now: “A New Way to Age: The Most Cutting-Edge Advances in Antiaging.”  Not that E needs it (you did hear the ice cracking, right?)

I’m anxious to see what her views (Sommers,. not E’s) are.  (One review referred 8 orgasms a day at Sommers’ age 73, so we may have to cut back, lol). OTOH, it’s refreshing to see a Hollywood-type staying in their field of expertise (appearance) and not getting into politics, environment, and some of the other “they know nothing!” topics many Tinsel-Town Types meander into.  It’s ike they read their own press releases…

OK, time to “table it” for this morning. Instead of turning over chickens (looking for eggs) I’m debating leftover spaghetti.  I’ll let you know how that turns out, though as the old union carpenter said “I work for scale…”  lately.  And I did have leftover shrimp pizza Monday morning….would  war mein noodles be a better choice?  You, know, spirit of Globalism and all that?

Write when you get rich,

george@ure.net

39 thoughts on “Inflation? What Inflation?”

  1. HOW INFLATION & PRICE MANIPULATION CAUGHT ME NAPPING.

    My wife’s Part D Walmart/Humana Medicare Prescription price increased to $60 a month in 2020 from $30 a month in 2019 & $16 a month in 2018. For the last 2 years, I never checked Medicare costs during the open enrollment period. All other Medicare price increases are in line but this one. They knew I was asleep & took advantage of me. How many other seniors are suffering this trauma.

    Note to self: Review costs during 2020 Medicare open enrollment period.

    • “How many other seniors are suffering this trauma.”

      The wife’s policy went up two hundred a month for her alone
      With a 7500.00 deductible.
      Because the goal of insurance is to make money not spend it. She is getting older and the odds of needing medical treatment goes up. I seriously anticipate her insurance costs doubling to 36000.00 and change a year next year.
      Like I have seen so many times before..out price it so you dont have any choice but to drop it. Then any costs can be passed on by increasing prices at the hospitals and clinics. Rent for doctors office spaces to… that also guarantees them the option of increasing insurance rates to.
      I fortunately remember when everyone had insurance part time full time and family coverage was pennies. Then deregulation..

  2. for the bottom feeders.. that would like to read that great novel

    America before..

    https://archive.org/details/abelc

    you can read it or listen to it.. it is also on audible.com.. a great site I might add.. I have been a member of audible for a long time now..

  3. George,

    Back when I was a geology undergrad in the 90s I visited Glacier NP. It’s easily my favorite NP and if you’ve never been there you should go because it’s gorgeous. That’s not the story, though. The story is that the signs bemoaning shrinking glaciers were there in those days, but this is before the ‘climate hard sell’ that we have today. I remember my professors bemoaning the fact that the glaciers were retreating, but there was no anthropocentric claim on the signs or any other finger pointing.

    It was a little bit confusing to me because we’re all supposed to be geologists and we recognize the fact that glaciers come and go. It’s just planetary business, right? For some reason the great learned ones were taking it personally. It left me wondering how was this time different than any other glacial retreat? My attitude was ‘sh*t happens’. They’ll be back at some point like nothing ever happened.

    I’ve thought about this a little since this story has been in the news and it proves the point that we can’t predict climate worth a damn and never could. The other thing that occurred to me is that certain types of people take impersonal processes personally and that leads to inserting themselves into the equation and believing that humans have some role. These are the same types that are easily fooled into believing climate hype.

    It helps to remember that glaciers come and go. It ain’t about us. Don’t take it personally.

    • Yes Nature will DO what it Wants!!! Unfortunately, this climate change sales job is a scam for Wall Street to price and trade carbon credits. Just another money making scheme since they purloined and exhausted most of the nations pension funds! That party is over, so they are looking for the next gambit to fleece the public.

      Can you believe all those experts that argue for and against climate change? Yes and No! Today you can BUY any Expert opinion for whatever cause your heart desires! Those reports are pablum for the uninformed as endless repetition of those “expert” opinions, becomes uncontroversial dogma!

      Now all of us wonder why things don’t work like they used to!

    • “but there was no anthropocentric claim on the signs or any other finger pointing.”

      in the sixties and seventies.. we were taught that it was a cycle.. that it happens regardless..

      although one teacher had us read cataclysms of the earth.. and the HAB theory.. then discuss it.. those two books are still two of my favorite.. the Hab theory is basically the book cataclysms with a story line around it..
      https://archive.org/details/cataclysmsofeart00brow
      great book.. it will definately get your mind thinking in a whirl.. but if you like to have a sci fy story then get the hab.. I have both sitting next to the chair as two of my favorite reads.
      I personally like it because it gets me to think.. outside the box the discussions that were had in class..had everyone giving it some pretty deep thought.. ..

    • “It left me wondering how was this time different than any other glacial retreat?”

      The only difference I can see is that the population is seven billion and counting.. the cycle will remain the same with a time variable because of population growth and decline.
      Our presence does have a factor but not the sole cause.
      Of course that’s just my opinion. I would love to go to that park one day . I have seen pictures of it and it looks amazing. I bet the air coming off of the glacier is nice cool and fresh .
      It is on the bucket list..

      • ANOTHER glacier on your list should be portage glacier in Alaska.
        Bring a 4 pack of Champale and a fresh French loaf from anchorage, get fresh giant crab and smoked salmon nearby.

  6. The leftover spaghetti could be in place of the hash browns with eggs & italian sausage for a complete breakfast. Have Elaine cook it up for you.

  7. My ESP is suggesting the British Crown is suppressing a Megan Markle scandal as she distances herself from the Crown in case of its revelation, which will eventually happen. Prince Harry is willing to forgo the crown to protect her. When you are married, two become one.

  8. I figured it out ! Now I know where I saw/heard U before..the Life Cereal commercials with Mikey..”try it you will like it!” I know lets see if Mikey likes it – he wont eat it – he hates everything” 2020 version – ‘I know lets see if Georgie likes BTC – he wont try it – he hates everything!”

    Bwaahahaha – that scam will only cost U $8700.00 this AM – read em & weep all U grumpy -inflexable – who moved my cheese grouchpotatoes!

    No Bitcoin 4 U !

  9. George,
    -BlackRock, and now James Murdoch? Rut ro. Looks like the Climate Deniers will be the last buggy whip makers.
    -And now thanks to the conservatives, now Bernie and Pocahontas know how to pay for all their programs: Massive Deficit Spending.
    Brilliant.
    Doesn’t take a genius to say: “Gee, if there’s money for stock buybacks and offloading corporate expenses, there’s money for hungry kids and sick people.”
    Well done.
    Best, Mike.

  10. Best economy in a long time. But continued to be supported by borrowing against our futures. Now yours and my future (well with all your work, yours maybe longer), mine probably 15-20 years more if male family history continues. But in a unprecedented time (+10 years) of a good economy, we still spend far more then we take in and still getting worse every day. https://www.usdebtclock.org/ This is how we know all this is a ponzie scheme. Bankers and government leaders at the top of the scheme steal from us and our children and no adult politician nor voters move even an inch toward sanity. My new grand daughter so precious comes into this world already deeply in debt, living a house of cards economic system. Both major parties give no sh_t. As long as they can pay off their voters with our children’s economic future.

  11. G – thats $518 from every person in America – to contribute to the Coots winning ways! The “bull” is bucking and the Coot is tied in and riding to the buzzer. I just I hope I hear the buzzer in time to get the hell off the dam bull before it crushes me under all that..

    G – this investing stuff is getting too easy – just buy buy buy. Hell bells with every man and women in America kicking it to the tune of $518 per person it feels like All U All got my back in this here market money making en devour – thanks bitches!

  12. George,
    Our economy is booming. The markets are reacting. My portfolio is bursting at the seams. My business is breaking records every month.

    I applaud the conservative appointees (what’s left of them) the conservative politicians,(the ones that actually vote)… and the legacy of Bernanke, Yellen and now Powell for playing a big role in this resurgence.

    But I refuse to give the Worlds dumbest human any credit. I know too much about Trump through my colleagues in New York to think he has anything to do with it. As dumb as I think he is, the people that actually know him in New York are flabbergasted that this serial con man is POTUS.

    That’s why I am fully behind Michael Bloomberg. Although a Democrat, he ran for Mayor of New York as a Republican and his views are more on the conservative side….especially as it relates to commerce, and the economy. He didn’t become a Billionaire by embracing liberal views. He knows how to create jobs. Bloomberg LLP employs over 20,000 workers.

    And, unlike Trump, who is in reality worth maybe $500 million, which is about what he inherited from his dad, he has published his tax records and is transparently worth $56 billion.

    While he needs to dial back the climate change crazy talk, (political rhetoric to attract the Dem vote), his ability to create jobs in rural communities through his Business Resource Center policies I believe will be embraced in Trumps base. Bloomberg has a track record of success and if this country wants to continue a less stressful and non contentious road to continued prosperity, we need a guy like this. Put some integrity and brains back into the office of the President. Hell, he may even keep guys like Mnuchin and Pompeo who are really running the show. I think it’s worth a shot.

      • A Duesenberg J is way out of my reach.

        But I’ll maybe keep the donkey fueled up if there’s any Tesla deals to be hauled home from yard sales when the power goes out.

      • exactly George… what truly surprises me is how everyone has on blinders and cannot see it coming..

      • George,
        Have you been reading the charts I have been sending you? 1929 redox is not coming anytime soon. Too much innovation still happening.

        Innovation equals change, change equals re-education, re-tooling, re-tooling means More Jobs. It’s a cycle we have experienced here in America for well over a Hundred years.

    • Mark will be begging for the return of Trump if the crazies win 2020. If the crazies win, America will be like the Knights Templars on Friday, Oct 13, 1307 & the rich businessman will be their first targets.

      • ? Wasn’t that the date the King of France reneged on his loans from the Knights Templar and instead rounded THEM up for execution?

      • It was the origin of Friday the 13th…And Joe M is right…NC …WRONG…

        There is one just after the election on November 13th. Could it be that the orange one…in a repeat of history, gets defeated and refuses to leave the White House and round up his detractors and takes his revenge out on those that defied him? Wouldn’t put it past this egotistical idiot.

    • @MARKZ

      Bloomberg spent millions in Virginia…anti gun…we will shortly see the fruits of his labor…a ‘hot’ 2nd rev…your president..NEVER be mine……locked and loaded…as a true american was meant to be…Freedom and Liberty…..not for the weak minded…..Semper Fi

  14. And down she goes..the hack of Ukrainian Airlines flight out of Iran was 100% Israhell operation. The airline is owned by none other than Israhell businessman Aron Mayberg and Ukrainian/Israhell oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.

    Pre-flight Check List not signed off by Iranian Airport Engineers – Ukrainian flight crew insisted on flying at own risk&responsibility. Plane experienced difficulties on takeoff or soon thereafter.This is when cyber attack occurred -targeting both Navi sys and ID friend or Foe (IFF) Transponder. IFF was turned OFF & Aircraft changed course- heading torwards IRGC base nearby.
    TOR M3 Operator had No communications – radio comms were all Jammed.. dark/silent/aircraft headed right towards him – and he already was on High Alert.

    They want several million DEAD Shia’s – by gummit they gonna get millions dead..

  15. 217 trillion-real estate
    94 trillion- B,S,Debt
    55 trillion-S,M,Equities
    3.1 trillion-Gold+Silver

    Which one is the winner every time real estate have you got your steak on Moon Mars or the new asteroid,
    Me I like a mordant stereochemistry toward stereochromy real estate,
    Why because the people that produce that make things stand out are pursued by the losel. And the losel,have the ability to make the money out of thin air, they are the root of all seeds, and the seed that motivates is money, the creation of money the abundance of money do you see where the future’s going here do you see how the future is going to be where it’s at because of where it’s going because of money,,,,,,
    Everyone here except for maybe a few of the 1% has experienced the feeling of lack of money,,,,
    Now can you imagine a neighbor Community a City where everybody has everything they need there’s no need for starvation or being without heat or being without water or being without a need to go to town to fulfill your obligations all that is coming about thank goodness.

    May all beings be lovingly fulfilled so be it.
    May all beings be financially fulfilled so be it
    May all beings be readily fulfilled so be it

    • Seeds that’s the answer seeds of Ghana and they’re going up higher the ones the good deals that I got before I’ve gone up 50% so look for seed prices going up, how’s the weather keeps amazing people who aren’t ready, watch is all the real data is swept under the rug well people who aren’t aware all of a sudden say hey I can’t buy No Seeds for my garden they cost too much.

      As the price of food goes up above what previously people thought it would go to and this affects so many people who are living on the edge ,,,do we eat or do we buy medication,,,
      So your net worth has just got in a little bit smaller,,,,
      And when that happens we worry and anxiety sets in,,,,
      And you say what can we do well the only solution is 2 allow only x amount of Siege to be sold to anyone customer who is stockpiling too much whereas disabling the rest of the population from growing anyting and this is the same thing with the money on the pyramid those top 1% own over 90% some say 50 and they prevent the rest of the world from prospering,,,,
      Just like the IRS prevents the United States of America from becoming the best country in the world.

      The FED makes up all that money to run the banks the government’s everything so why do we have to give it back if it was intentionally made for a whole country or the world to use effectively sounds like there’s something sketchy going on that’s trying to control the power of the people and I hope that Trump will I know that Trump knows this so he will try hopefully very hard to disassemble the IRS that’s why he’s exposing the bankers well yeah they go create and some more money and why do you have to pay back money if they’re creating the money see it doesn’t work that’s why the law of living on an island where there is no money and everybody’s happy but now we live in a society where money is plentiful until they decide to not print anymore or give any more and then that causes recessions depressions and they take your property away so they always stay in power but hopefully Trump will change all that the where we can have a society that has less crime because when there’s more money being distributed to the people don’t have to worry about the anxiety of where their next meal is coming from they get along a lot better as you will see

  16. calm down consulari. trust me it is DEFLATION.. debt and collapsed fixed income market equals deflation .. eventually called deflationary depression .. for years I considered this concept inflationary depression . verdict . impossible.put /call ratio inverted. check it out ..no shorts to catch price in markets.. so dangerous.. everyone on the same trade .. minnup from the frog down under

  18. Sir,

    By law of the land, the sheep outlawed fox hunting some time ago. However the reverse does not appear to hold true.

    It caught my eye this evening that an organization named MuslimHeritage with a website and twitter account of the same name is presenting a rather convincing con job about the last thousand years of European history upon impressionable young minds of invited Christian school groups. The public face of the organization appears to be fronted by the headmaster of a Manchester slum “academy” (high school) that receives an “outstanding” grade for its type. Apparently the “academy” moniker permits the school to receive full government funding without being required to teach the national cirriculum.

    The headmaster mouths peaceful sentiments to MSM scribes, and is consulted by government in the fight against terrorism.

    The school has regrettably lost an IT instructor to a 21 year prison sentence having being convicted of overseeing a cocaine distribution ring. A school student of unknown promise is also under the care of prison authorities for an extended term after carrying out the 2017 Manchester bombing.

    While the UK authorities declined the organization’s attempt to copyright the name “MuslimHeritage”, the EU website in Brussels hosts a multi page pseudo-scientific manifesto under the heading of Culture from one of the organization’s “scholars” promoting the cause in light of Europe’s “growing muslim population”.

    The hour is late; we must go count the flock. Pleasant dreams to all.

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