Two parts to it: The rolling news part and the ChartPack part as the markets hedge. It’s not a long discussion per se. Doesn’t need to be.
But this being the weekend, and with the odds of Spring ahead this month, the gloom of winter is passing. Until Monday, at least
More for Subscribers ||| Master Index 2018 to Present ||| Master Index 2001 thru 2017 ||| Missing out? SUBSCRIBE NOW!!! |||
There are 2 post-offices in my city. If I take my bills to the downtown branch my local bills are paid within 24-48 hours. If i take my bills to the west branch my bills get routed to Oklahoma City and my local bills don’t get paid until up to 2 weeks, often occurring late fees.
I think this is an old lady thing, but I try most days to go to local large store to walk around as a form of exercise. The floors are level, the buildings are heated or air conditioned, and there are no people asking me for money. My area has few or no sidewalks, and the city has been replacing sewerlines so the streets have some rocks and uneven patches and i worry about tripping. Woman in my Wednesday mall walking group have been complaining about strange looking single men sitting next to the local park paths and homeless people with carts. They no longer walk alone in the city parks.
Because I wander stores I look for good deals. Last summer I found amazing deals in stores and on line. Since late October or so there have been few great deals. Prices have continued to climb and my last trip to Aldi’s was a shocking $140 for two, not very big, and only half full bags of groceries. I think people’s spending reflects the increasing cost of goods and not an increase in the number of items bought.
I’ve been looking at comments on various web sites and it appears that people may have missed something in the Zelenskyy meeting. It sounded like the Ukrainian president might have used the Ukrainian slang term for the word “whore” in relation to J. D. Vance. There is the word “sorba” but I could have misheard. So I’m asking if anybody else heard it?
I heard someone say zelenskyy called him a bitch,don’t know if that’s what he said.
Ok well using derogatory language is not good in any event. Since I don’t speak Ukrainian or Russian I wanted to verify what I thought I heard.
By using rude language Zelenskyy has really messed up the relationship with the US. I don’t know how he will correct that mistake.
Crazier things have happened, but it would have to be something like an actual alien invasion to get things back on track. Kind of like the beginning of Halo on Paramount Plus. You know the union guys are getting ready to fight the company and possibly some sort of mercenary army of strike breakers when the Masterchief arrives to fight the Covenant.
– I will admit that I don’t pay much attention to the Ukraine any more – because? I believe that is not where the ‘problem’ will erupt. It may be part of the overall cause – but the bigger ‘problem’.., ‘the news’ – will come from somewhere else. Some other European country.
.
At one time the Ukrainian Mafia was one of the nastiest, most dangerous organized crime syndicate in the world. You simply did not mess with the Ukrainians. No way ! Crazy MF’ers.
I wonder what has become of them? You can bet they just didn’t walk away from a multi-billion dollar enterprise because of some petty little war going on.
Be interesting to know what they are doing behind the scenes. They don’t take sides. You are either with them, or you are an enemy. And they do love their violence.
.
Maybe they moved on.
https://www.am800cklw.com/news/more-than-100-000-ukrainians-in-canada-have-emergency-visas-that-will-expire-this-year.html
Know, who knows?.
Vic
I am not too convinced that an approval rating of the Trump Presidentcy at this stage is going to be very accurate., or meaningful. Especially if you try to compare ‘him’ to others.
He is attempting to do what so many other Presidents have said they would, but never even tried. But Trump came out of the dug-house swinging.., [ albeit through decree.] and that’s gonna hurt, confuse and piss-off a lot of people.
I am pretty sure that his tariff-wars will not do him much good in his “approval” either., but for some reason he thinks he can pull it off.
– “I love trade wars.” – Trump.
We’ll see what it looks like mid June.
We are in an all-out war with China, for world domination.
Trump is fighting for world freedom.
The CCP is fighting for world domination.
The vast majority of the world’s peoples are too stupid, ignorant, &or uninformed to know this is even going on. They likely will never know, unless China wins.
If we win, the world goes on and a form of stasis is maintained.
If China wins, the world becomes one giant ChiCom colony of worker ants, and the human race dies. The huge error people make WRT this is in [this paraphrase of] George’s statement: The Chinese civilization has been around for thousands of years.
The fallacy: The Chinese civilization was not socialist/communist, until 76 years ago. Despite what the flower-power crowd says, it still is. Read Xi Van Fleet’s book “Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning” ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546006303 ) if this nuance escapes you…
re: Diversion to the EGreSS
feat: “Deal or No Deal”
Folks,
Msm tracked President Zelenskyy Olympic-Walking out a White House egress to be lone occupant of a Beast of burden. Moments later his entourage followed in his wake on foot perhaps in search of non-pedestrian transport.
As script rewrite would have it, Ukraine One flew to the UK in anticipation of a co vening weekend assembly of European leaders. The bird’s arrival at Stansted Airport tucked almost under the wing of an adjacent private jet received overhead pictorial coverage by the BBC. A herd of Beasts stood by to transport dignitaries.
The “Daily Mail” notes that The King will be interrupting his sojourn with the Queen’s terriers at Balmoral Castle, Scotland and making his way to London. The father-in-law to sometimes Briefcase #11 opener on “Deal or No Deal” perhaps brings a message from the Banker? A ‘Miss Beazley’ shouldn’t be calling an American Mastiff a bitch around polite company? As an aside, one understands the late QE2’s remaining pair of Corgis enjoy all comforts with their daily walking needs attended to by a King’s brother lately of Royal Lodge, Windsor.
Alright, let’s return to DJ George ready to mike drop a Jackson message from the studio not to be confused with the Jackson 5. Here we go with a 3 11 brief case of a “Deal or No Deal” link on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/Fs1G15ifVNA
re: “The Feigned Curtizans”, 1679
feat: Mrs. Aphra Behn
Folks,
I owe you all a clarification. The Queen’s jack russell terrier, Bluebell, has been joined by a new rescue dog from Battersea, Moley (because the Queen says she looks like a mole). “Hello!” magazine, franchised from Spanish owners previously associated with “La Prensa” (The Press) of circa 1944, offers updates on the Royal Doghouse. The information in the women’s publication apparently stemmed out of the Queen’s unveiling of an Aphra Behn statue at Cambridge last Tuesday. Mrs. Behn allegedly experienced unprofitable business dealings in Holland by way of King Charles II. Perhaps “The Dutch Lover” by Mrs. Behn was a result in 1673?
“Hello!” also points out that King Charles III has been gifted a new Lagotto Romagnolo dog by an unidentified friend. The breed hails from around the environs of Ravenna, Italy. The pet will be named “Snuff” rather than ‘Mr. Snuffalugas’.
As chance would have it, Royal dot UK advised three weeks ago of an upcoming in-the-works visit for April by Their Majesties to Italy and The Holy See. Ravenna is said to be on the schedule.
Ravenna was the capital of retreat for an ailing Western Roman Empire around 476 ad. Shortly thereafter it came under control of the Papal States until arrival of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. According to “Wikipedia”, Ravenna is the place of four prophecies of Nostradamus.
Skype:
I am extremely disappointed MS is ending Skype. Skype has had SUPER CHEAP computer to landline or cell phone calling for many years, something I have used in my travels around the world multiple times, sometimes from very remote locations.
Skype works in the third world as well as in the developed world, which was one of it’s HUGE advantage of NOT having to pay the HIGH COST of International Roaming for your regular cell phone (which wouldn’t work at all in many 3rd world places, particularly when they were remote with NO cell phone service – but did have computer connectivity).
Does TEAMS, what MS is touting as it’s replacement, even do computer to landline calling? Does it do it to virtually every country in the world for a CHEAP price (only country Skype would not work in that I can recall from going over their list is N. Korea). Maybe somebody here who is familiar with TEAMS can post as to if Teams does good computer to land line phone calling and if that worldwide
(btw computer to computer calls are WORTHLESS if the party you are trying to call is NOT online at the moment you try to call them so don’t try to tell me that type of connection works just as well)
Maybe an idea Gates got from Epstein?
We use Teams at my office.
We have an Alabama office, a Wisconsin office bunch of little offices scattered around US, then South American offices and main office is in Sweden.
We use Teams rather than office phones, although we all have personal cells and they get used for all personal calls. We do a lot of meetings at odd times so people in Europe and South america can hook up.
So Teams calling is world wide, and so far works OK.
Vonage also has a good set up for distributed offices. In addition to phone apps, they have a VOIP desk phone that works the same whether you are at the office, working from home, or at a remote location. The Vonage desk phones are set up to have an office menu directory, and function like an office telephone switching system, but are VOIP based. I find the Vonage meeting software to be somewhat less finicky than Teams, although I do use Teams when the meeting leader insists.
NOT looking for an actual phone system. For actual desk phones I switched from Nextiva to “Magic Jack for Business” (different from regular Magic Jack … an actual business phone set up run as a totally separte company with a different headquarters, software support team etc.) with the same capabilities of full scale Nextiva I had for 1/3 the monthly pricing. I have been pleased with the new phone system and it’s capabilities. We are using multiple new Yealink IP phones which are MUCH better than the Polycoms we were using before. I kept the Polycoms in case we needed to switch back but now need to put them on E-Bay to get rid of them.
What I used my Skype Out account for was for when traveling to call back to the States to regular phone numbers via a WiFi connection.
Yes you could just use your regular cell phone via a WiFi connection withOUT having it activated as a cell phone in the foreign country you were in to make those calls since Skype was an App on the cell phone. I liked being able to use my traveling laptop (small super light weight) or my cell phone for making those phone calls to regular phones back in the states (or Canada) when anywhere. $30/year for unlimited US /Canada calling. For a small per minute charge you could also call into almost any other telephone exchange in the world, just needed to put $10 or so on deposit with your account withOUT having to activate anything special so as to pay for those calls by the minute. (NO incoming calls from regular phones, just traditional Skype incoming calls UNLESS you upgraded to a Skype IN account. (did get voice mail though on your regular Skype account).
I guess I :”could” just add the Magic Jack app to my phone for a REGULAR MJ line and use that when traveling … but once you do that the reports are it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove that app from your cell phone AND that original MJ phone number you first put on can NEVER be changed on your phone to another MJ number
Guess I’ll now save that $30/yr since I won’t be paying Skype but other than the MJ app I don’t see a simple solution to replacing the Skype system. (MJ has cheap international calling, again with a deposit to your account, but unlike with Skype they would first be routing the call to the US and then back out)
OH … I forgot to ask if TEAMS is part of the MS Office Suite … which I will NOT buy!! PERIOD!
We have used Word Perfect Office almost exclusively here for 30 years (multiple station licenses) and have also equiped everything with Libra Office. I refuse to upgrade our multiple now older licenses for MS Office due to my hatred of MS’s pricing and business model (and for word processing MS Word SUCKS!!! – no comparison to the elegance of Word Perfect).
Thanks for all the suggestions
Stephen 2,
Closed source advocates like Bill Gates (and Elon Musk) couldn’t maintain being richest-in-the-world of their industries selling George’s proverbial 100 year toasters or Skype’s inexpensive pay-as-you-go plans.
I suspect you may wish to ease yourself out of (originally EU-funded) ‘Skype’ in favor of (American) ‘Signal’ which is free. There’s a desktop version if necessary. The ‘Signal’ faq page even explains how to set it up on a cellphone not having an active phone number or sim card for the hardcore freegan crowd.
Notice how the Smoot Hawley tariffs snowballed the bottom of market in 1932, down 75%, only down by 20% pre-enactment:
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/smoot-hawley-tariff-act/#:~:text=Impact%20of%20the%20Smoot%2DHawley%20Tariff%20Act,-On%20the%20Stock&text=Foreigners%20started%20withdrawing%20capital%20from,anything%20other%20than%20domestic%20goods.
Now you make a useful point. Yes. But now we face inflation not deflation.
Check back in a week though.
Will laying off most of the Womens Day Care folks be deflationary? They won’t be shopping on line or at target and TJ Max every day.
I was wondering about deflation.. in the eighties they had coupon sales get this free if you purchase x amount of goods.. either way ..the economy any economy cannot thrive without the velocity of cash..push the noodle. scoping out other peoples carts I notice the lack of volume..
essentials and price hikes has people cutting back sales.. A half million dollar house can’t be sold to someone making an average wage earners income..
if the money continues to drop.. people have no other choice but Cut back..brick and mortar transportation all takes the coin of the realm.. in the 80s Reagan had this problem.. trickle down didn’t trickle..so tax rebates and recalculate on on how taxes are collected..
A privately built spacecraft has successfully landed on the moon
A privately built spacecraft has successfully landed on the moon, a feat that only one other company has accomplished in spaceflight history.
The robotic lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, has been in orbit around the moon for roughly two weeks, preparing for its daring descent. Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace developed the spacecraft.
The spacecraft touched down at about 3:36 a.m. ET
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/moon-landing-blue-ghost-private-spacecraft-nasa-rcna193468
Nifty pix of the back side of the Moon — no alien bases, though…
re: Firefly
feat: Dante’s “Inferno”, canto 26
Ray,
Thanks for the link. Firefly appears to have an interesting history which has been partially deleted from the web this weekend. Oy vey.
The first iteration of the company was founded by a former employee of Virgin Galactic. VG litigated him into bankruptcy. The remains were purchased up by a firm led by a Ukrainian named Maxim Polyakov. Both his parents had careers in the Soviet space program. Interestingly Mr. Polyakov is a follower of the ideas of the Ukrainian-born Russian scientist Volodymyr Vernadsky. Image of the latter appears on the Ukraine’s 2019 series hrv1,000 banknotes.
It seems that Mr. Polyakov was compelled to sell his interest in Firefly by the Biden Administration due to alleged ‘national security concerns’. The sale went through the day Russia invaded the Ukraine. On a more positive note, Mr. Polyakov has decamped from America to Europe. A subsequent win appears to have been a South African Dragonfly Aerospace venture sent up on a SpaceX rocket…
The purchasers of Firefly from the Polyakov concern are AE Industrial Partners. Their “Wikipedia” entry was deleted yesterday. Here is a perhaps fleeting link to a “Wikipedia” editors’ page partial discussion on the matter.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/AE_Industrial_Partners
“It seems that Mr. Polyakov was compelled to sell his interest in Firefly by the Biden Administration due to alleged ‘national security concerns’.”
In his chat with Rogan, Musk mentioned his security clearance (in-passing) and said that “rocket men” all had to have the very top-level security clearance, because they were building and launching a device that could be easily-weaponized to target any point on the planet. Logic dictates this statement means: If you don’t qualify, you can’t fly big rockets in the U.S. This doesn’t mean Polyakov was untrustworthy, just that he was “not trustworthy enough…”