GMAFB: The lefties and the the shambles of co-conspiring media are thrilled this Sunday that Donald Trump has referred to Baltimore, MD as a “rat infested mess.” Wherever there are people (and the more tightly-packed) the more of problem rats pose. Yeah, they carry disease and Ebola is about to go global in our read of things.
Apparently, the left is hard-selling the idea that to call Baltimore out for its rat and other urban challenges is now “racist.” Huh? Did we overlook the Ku Klux Rats? What are these name-callers on? Is any criticism of any issue now racist? OMG, climate skepticism will be next as well as questioning socialism despite there not being a saingle successful socialist country in the Universe…Racists – everyone’s a Racist!
Yet, as we review Trumps tweets (which you can, too, over here) there are no racial slurs or innuendoes. He’s a developer and aware of what? Urban conditions? Politicians whole leave the hard work in the home district or state and go to fleece the rest of the country when the cities are collapsing back home? That is “racists?” Well…not around here.
Sold-ass fact: Baltimore has a rat problem – so much so that the city’s Public Works Dept. has a rat page for residents...
Democrats take rats personally. Their AFU logic goes like this: If there’s an attack on rats, it’s an attack on democrats. (They self-identified with ’em in this silliness.) Under AFU thinking, anyone attacking a democrat is a racist, Rats being democrats, it follows Trump must be a racist. Huh?
Could they have confused racist with rattist?
Trump then doubled-down on Baltimore’s urban sanitation failures by going Left Coast: Saying of the House Speaker, who jumped onboard this new Trump-bash, had problems, too…:
“Speaking of failing badly, has anyone seen what is happening to Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco. It is not even recognizable lately. Something must be done before it is too late. The Dems should stop wasting time on the Witch Hunt Hoax and start focusing on our Country!”
Mr. Trumps version of Charmin’ the Charmin?
What everyone is missing, because there’s no money in it, is that the dem’s desperately attempting to brand anything they can as “racist.”
The Reality is: Yes, big cities in America do have a problem with vermin. Including those not in elective office. But since the dems made rats an issue, let’s go there….
Pest control outfit Orkin, in a late 2018 report, rated Baltimore #9 worst rat haven in the country. Pelosi, representing the 12th district in California, owns the the #5 worst spot.
Going up the food chain, as we budding rhodentologists would, We find Chuck Schumer’s New York is #3 in the country in rat infestations. Again, not surprising..
And Los Angeles, where there are how many homeless now (?) while the left-leaning hoi poloi crank out films has the second-biggest national rat problem. How Washington DC only made #4 on the rat list is a testament to recent (*2016) resignations from the House and Senate.
Oh, one last data point: Worst rat problem in the country turns out to be Obama’s home town – Chicago.
Why are we not surprised?
Our Sage Sunday Advice? (SSA) Beware of racist rats and other name-callers because the left will stop at nothing (if people are dumb enough, which is a given) to turn this into a 2020 “mouse that roared..” Just like the Mueller fiasco was supposed to be a lock on impeachment, ol’ Bumbling Bob tanked any such dreams.
We figure Trump’s just saying “Cheese!” to the double-standard, muddled-thinking class, and it’s a trap. DeCon meets QANON? Or politics is so mickey-mouse…
Moron the ‘morrow!
Oh boy , here we go.
In 3 , 2 , 1…
George you know what would of been a good long term growth stock is the outfit that takes care of the investigators and witnesses of the Clintons misdeeds. Starting with Arkansas and now the latest on the dance floor down in your area. Quiet a run huh.
Hey Mr. Ure, can you do a “How to have and keep a good job in the greater depression” article? Me and my girlfriend are curious how we can maintain a stream of money to keep us afloat during bad times. Thank you again!!!
Stay out of debt, live beneath your means, and put money in savings, then you won’t need so much income when things go sideways for you. Unfortunately, job opportunities are not always within your control, nor are the going rates, despite the best of advise. Sometimes you get screwed by no fault of your own, and more often than not when that happens, no one is going to give you any substantive help. Stay away from the offshore job gigs. Do continue reading Urbansurvival. And yes, I would like to hear G___’s article on that subject.
Agreed on everything! Just to add a bit: Learn how to build and maintain as much as possible in your life yourself – become really flexible with different skillsets. Learn Spanish and Chinese(Mandarin) since these are the other two major languages in the world. Keep your savings in different places and types, so that if a bank or brokerage fails, it won’t bankrupt you. If there is valuable information on the net, download it and save it on your own hard drives – such things can disappear if the site starts losing money. That includes youtube vids. Secure your house or apt – burglary is unpredictable and a reality. Maintain your health and avoid long term medications to the best of your ability. With those things in mind, you’ll do well.
Ah, MC! Every time you post, you remind me of what my kids would be if they didn’t have “head-in-butt” syndrome, and I smile. I will answer your question with an article I just wrote, and post it as a top-level post, but before I do, I’ll tell you there are no “good and secure” jobs in a Depression, not even Government work. Don’t even plan on finding one. To survive and prosper in a Depression, you MAKE a job, by doing something essential or something necessary, which others can’t, and you realize “payment” may not always be in dollars or Troy ounces…
George went down this path not too long ago (meaning last few years…) and the articles were very good. They might be found in the PN/US archive. I wouldn’t mind seeing them dusted off and republished again…
Has Trump seen Nancy Pelosi ‘s district? He is right, it is not recognizable. With over a dozen high rise cranes, 30 million sq ft of high rises already built with roof top parks, the nation’s largest collection of Michelin starred restaurants (including More than New York), beautiful Blvd and parks, the nation’s most technologically advanced sports venues with beautiful waterfront locations, the nation’s highest intellectual capital, top rated universities in Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Santa Clara, USF, St Mary’s, UCSF to name a few. Oh, and the dozens of world class museums of all kinds, great theater, beautiful sunset walks on the Bay…Nothing wrong here…oh and the mysterious and still yet to find poop in the streets the the extreme right likes to talk about? Fake news…just like our fake President.
So all the poop on the sidewalks stories,articles carried in national pubs, as well as international publications are all fake?
All those business conferences that were cancelled due to fecal matter & homeless on the streets.
So fake, SF has public employees whose job is to clean it up – guess the app/site for reporting the offending piles of (4 letters) is fake as well?
Wonder what the name for a clown living in a bubble is?..
How does it feel to lose ? and keep losing EVERY single time. Project much ?!
Getting tired of losing yet ? Anons certainly are enjoying winning..TRUMP – keeping us save while Making A-holes Grovel Always..K.A.G. -2020
Yep. The poop stories are not real. I live here fool. One business conference got cancelled and there were 20 lined up to take the spot.
We are the most robust and financially stable region in the country with statistically FULL employment. Many of the populated regions and towns in the Bay Area have unemployment in the 1’s. That is considered by experts to be full employment because there are those that are considered unemployable. If you can’t land a job here, you can’t land a job anywhere.
You people all live in your contained bubbles devoid of real information and knowledge of how the rest of the world lives. I know. I was one of them over 21 years ago when I lived in the Midwest. California and the Bay Area changed my life literally and figuratively. At 62, feel and have the mindset of someone half that age. My attitude towards social issues, the environment, race and religion have been happily altered forever. But, I have always been a seeker of change my entire life…It’s in my genetic code, passed down from my moms side of the family that migrated over here from Italy. They were always advocates of change. My Grandma especially. The original early adopter and world traveler. My Grandpa was a purchasing executive with TWA…this the travel. She taught me to never look back and be that change merchant.
SF is known as the poop and homeless capital. Oh, you can’t find the poop then you don’t walk much in SF. Most of the streets smell like urine even after the city poop patrol cleans the sidewalks every morn. How do I know? My sister lives there and each time I visit I cannot wait to get home and take a long shower. I have been reading your comments for awhile and you really are delusional.
Given that NYC was going to be under 10 feet5 of horse crap by 1909…but you see tech came.
So now do revolutions. The poor will overthrow eventually. They will be led by idiots
SF has the most billionaires in the world!!!
http://money.com/money/5644183/san-francisco-billionaire-density-income-inequality/
Mark, downtown is still ‘strange’ from 5th and Market to 8th. I see it 5 days per week. The rest of the city ain’t so bad, excluding TL, Bayview, and your car window.
Yet, in the land of the Ultra Rich, the most obvious solutions are attacked (In other words, SF has fantastic wealth & fantastic lack of compassion):
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20689583/homeless-sf-suit-navigation-center-embarcadero-shelter-lawsuit
Just look up “poop map” Marco Poop-o on any search engine and it takes you right back to your back yard. Real estate sales people are a lot like used car salesmen – hype it and turn it.
But you are forgetting that Nancy Pelosi and her empire were built on the Google leftist propaganda machine and the Google leftist election tampering which you warned us all of just recently. Without Google’s partisan political meddling, Pelosi would not be speaker of that house today. What happens to all those taxpayer supported institutions and public-subsidized private projects when Google bites the dust, and the academic and corporate brown shirts who are riding the gravy train lose their protection from public scrutiny via the Google leftist search engine fix ? Your comment was just so insightful and relevant, that I just have to post it again:
mark on July 25, 2019 at 11:51
“Hi George.dont know if you caught the congressional testimony of dr robert epstein about googles massive manipulation of search results and the effect it has on elections,but you need to.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSTHgoaVtSw&t=199s.this needs to be seen by everyone and the issue needs to be addressed and dealt with asap or we will never have a fair election again..scary stuff”
Scary stuff indeed! Nothing mysterious at all about it, just leftists looting the American heartland to make Pelosi’s district a garden spot. Don’t look for poop in the streets, look for it in the offices of leftist politicos and the boardrooms of their brown shirt corporate accomplice cronies. Send in the DOJ revenuers, please, DJT.
Oh…one correction…I was too kind just calling Trump fake…He is the most worthless, brainless, feckless, tool ever to hold a political office in the history of humankind. He brings zero to the table except angst and confusion.
And in terms of taking things out of context, which I believe you did George… his tweet about Baltimore was directed at and mentions Elijah Cummings… That is his district. That district is 53% black. So while saying rat infested is not in of itself racist, he owes the people of Baltimore a tad bit more respect than to call the place that they live, in Trumps own words…a “dangerous and filthy place” …”No human being would want to live there”
Except Mr. Idiot of our lifetime, people DO LIVE THERE!!!! He is not going to make things better by ridiculing entire cities. This is why a majority of people obsessively hate Trump. It’s worse outside the US. When i travel abroad, I am told to say I am from California, not the US. I am bothered by that. I get that worldwide, California’s reputation is stellar and that’s a huge understatement…but I love my country and I hate what this brainless boob in office is doing to it.
Now my corrections:
1 Trump is NOT a Fake president. He won, kicked Hillary’s ass and you are still whining about this 3-years on. The Electoral College is there so the commies in Berkeley doesn’t run America. They would under a raw democracy (mob rule_) but we are a representative democracy – a republic.
2. I call bullshit on Cummings. Since when can a president not call-out a congresman? No, this is the Left attacking Trump because he dared address someone who is black…I mean FMTT – white now have to get mob rule approval before talking to black people? GTF Real.
3. One needs to be aware that living in shitty ‘hoods has become something of an ‘industry’ to get federal funding. See the taxpayer and insurance data.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-insurance-civil-unrest-riots-bix-gfx-20141126-htmlstory.html
And how much did Baltimore get because they rioted? $20+ million?
https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-unrest-cost-20150526-story.html
And that money gets sucked up and the cycle of poverty and the mindset of “poor” never changes. Democrats are running a permanent poverty scam.
Trump is just using the same logic he applies to critics of the Nation who are recent arrivals and people who want to tear it down (and invalidate the rule of law by demanding grandjuryt secrets and what-not) “If you got a better way of doing it, go back to where you came fromt (whether home district, country, or company_) and show us your stuff before you get in ours as a Nation.
And brainless boobs in office? Go look at who’s representing you in the 12th cong dist. (Yeah, I’m a racist now, lol)
Screw the leftacrats. They have pissed away $25 million on Mueller, won’t give up, and they have pass zero meaningful legislation to move America forward.
We don’t have a Congress. We have demented non-starters who lie to voters and get pissed when called out. Career politicians, feathering their own nests. Above and beyond OUR Social Security System (they have their own) and THEY have their own Healthcare plan and THEY get lots of other “special people” treatment.
Time to end the democrat reign of terror. Hold them to account and vote to replace every one of ’em.
Are the polls open yet?
Fact: Race-baiting democrats are going for another civil war if they can arrange it. Next year (before the election) they will crash the markets, too. Take it to the bank.
George, Trump IS a FAKE President that lost the popular vote by over 3 million…that part I am ambivalent about…because I certainly did NOT want Hillary either. But I had no idea how big of a nightmare Trump would actual be. His idiocy is scary.
It’s time to end the White House that is run by Fox News reign of terror. If I had $25 million to spare, I would double down to expose this crook of a President and rid the country of the most corrupt political reign in the history of America. As corrupt as I think the Clinton’s were, Trump makes them look like Walt Disney. This man is a very, very corrupt individual, liar and cheat. And…he is displaying it in front of our eyes and none of you can see it and it blows my mind why you are so blind.
What country are YOU in? In America we have an electoral college, Mark. Hillary’s “popular” vote was probably 5% illegal voters…GMAFB
BTW How ius your BP, Mark? Mine’s 116/69 pulse rate 55. I worry about you when you get so worked up.
George – Surely U jest..
ECD – No I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley!
Weaponization of political correctness is right out of self help book – Am I a Coward?
The panic in DC is palatable at this point in time – and why wouldnt it be..
Epstein’s hidden, so far, planes with tail #’s listed with Dept of Homeland Security – front for Israeli intelligence. These “people” travel clandestinely into Mexico to Vera Cruz and then to Cuba, where most owned properties in Varado – beach front community where the “dead or disappeared” among American fugitives or “not really in jail, though they are supposed to be”, actually live . -VT
Ceck out where H.R. McMaster went after getting the boot from W.H. – Institute for Strategic Studies- the most disreputable London based think tank.
More dots ?
U bethcha..Ghishlane Maxwell charity (paid off victims) just closed, called Terra Mar – connect that dot to her long time friend Calfo Platero – ties Epstein & Maxwell back to..I.S.S.
Serving w/McMaster, Israeli general and former IAF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and Micheal Rich – chairmen of RAND Corp. – also serving on this think tank board extremely secretive Igor Yurgens.
Weaponization of politically correct speech/political correctness – more lame attempts at Thought Control/inducement..Entrainment technologies brought to U by Elbit Corp and others…
Behind everything..Franklin scandal,Houston child sex rings, Boystown, AIPAC child sex ring(suppressed) the real 9/11 investigation (suppressed), and nuclear theft scandal – w/victor bout (suppressed) and the rigging of EVERY presidential election since 2000.. “they” just love us so much, specially our Children.
Roof top parks. Don’t you mean tax dodge scams, welfare for the rich?
I and anyone I know will never set foot in those parks. The only way we will see them is when we fly over in our helicopters.
Guaranteed 100% rat free.
Thats the thing about you Trumpsters. No vision…no enlightenment. These roof top parks provide a green space in a concrete urban environment. They are publicly accessible and are city parks now. You don’t like parks. Too liberal for you? Are you the type of person who thinks the outdoors is that sitting in front of your driveway and watching the cars go by. Get a grip fools.
Tell me when you see:
A homeless person taking a snooze in one of these “accessible” rooftop parks for the rich.
I call bullshit. They are special parks for the special people.
For God’s sake Mark, you won’t even give it a rest on a Sunday! Have you looked in the mirror recently, Mark, and considered where your rancid hatred of Trump is coming from?
I’ll bet a dollar to a donut it’s really because Hitlery didn’t win and you’re really just a sore loser. Not a winning bet to keep whining about!
@ Mark
the ONLY fool that comments here is YOU….and by the way, “You people all live in your contained bubbles devoid of real information and knowledge of how the rest of the world lives. I know.”…..You do not know me or where I have been or have done…. …but I will give you some advice…FUATHYRIO…since you are 62 , a world traveler and have acquired some very serious hatred for the President of the United States…..which in any other country would be a very serious health problem for you…..Gives you no right to attack George….after he gives you concrete rebuttals to your rants….Your constant hatred for this President, and those that share your ‘hatred blinded’ view ,will be atoned for someday………and as my Italian Grandmother used to say….”a fanculo”
I agree with Mark. Hate speech is hate speech. I’m getting tired of the liberal bashing on this website. I’m not sure where it came from or why George is fixating on it and his shop rather than economics, investing, and finance, but the soapboxing needs to stop. I read PN/US for clues on building or preserving wealth and I’m too old to pull out the calculus books and trying to mine Marketwatch and Mr. Mustache for meaningful advice. I want a good life and that includes sociable friends and neighbors.
Hey George
It is clear how the “racist” logic works now. Critique of anything that is related to a non-white person is racist (it is super double plus racist if that criticism comes from a white man in a position of power). I would even bet that anything short of high praise and adulation is also considered racist. I’ll leave that particular experiment to the sociologists as I’m rather fond of my unbroken nose.
The funny thing is that I read those tweets this morning and my immediate reaction was to view the so-called racist attack as a challenge to the political leaders of cities and towns EVERYWHERE to clean up their act and help make this country a better place to live for everyone. Yes, it will take years of hard work but it can be done if everyone would unwad their underoos and figure it out without creating a new class of victims (HINT: You CANNOT fix one person’s problems by creating another problem for someone else).
“Critique of anything that is related to a non-white person is racist (it is super double plus racist if that criticism comes from a white man in a position of power).”
No. Criticism or denigration, to any level, of any Conservative of color is both permitted and encouraged…
National Politicos NEVER fix anything — they “manage” things. Were they to fix things, they’d unemploy millions of useless government leeches, and lose votes. Chasing an unmanageable religion, like “global climate change” is infinitely preferable to fixing issues related to pollution and filth, because there is no possible metric by which to measure the former, whereas shrinking the island-sized floating piles of detritus in the oceans would be instantly obvious, and so would appropriating money, then not delivering the solution…
Rats – an unintentional consequence of the Baltimore gun buybacks? LOL
From a mayors point of view, community health is the best thing to under fund if the city needs money. (Next to safety and education).
Once a rat population becomes infected with a deadly disease that can be transmitted to humans we’re all at risk.
Who won’t cheer unlimited fed-bux to solve the crisis.
LMAO! Seee i dont have to watch the news. I got up yesterday to get in the Pool at 530 am. it was 90°. As i sat out on the deck, i noticed a dead rat, that drown laying next to the hot tub. I have not seen one rat since i have been here.
It made me rememeber back when they wrote the first $750B bail out bill which i actually read the entire thing. One of maybe 200 Americans who did. Lol Nancy Pelosi had placed a $2.5M subsidy for the study of the San Francisco Field mice extinction issue. Ha ha ha ha
Echos and echos in the cave.
AND, 99% of the world “thinks” time is linier!!!!! ROTFLMFAO!
Its cyclical and mobius. Hard one to rap ones mind around, i suppose for most.
Ya know i was in a lecture about “meditation”, George last week. Really good stuff.. ohhh as the waves of Dejavu wash over me.. no need to comment n____ i already know what you are going to say and i can answer you here of ya like.
At the end of the lecture, someone asks the “Guru” how do I quite and still my mind. The “guru” was silent for a while and said “try to be still and not think”.. so i stood up and out on to the stage.. and said, mind if i answer that question? He looks at me and said by all means.
I addresss the crowd and asked them. How many of you know what balance truly looks like?? Nobody riased their hand. I said how many of you know what centered looks like?? Nobody raised their hand.
I looked at the “guru” and he looked at me.
I said, is there any carpenterers or wood workers in building? 2 people raised their hand. I said has any of you ever hung a picture in your house? Eveyone raised their hand.
I said Good! See.. meditation is simple. Its not rocket science. Do any of you know what a torpedo level is?? 5 people smiled and raised their hand. I turned to the “guru” he had a blank stare.
I said a torpedo level is a level that is about 6 to 10 inches long. IF you want to know how to be “centered” and what “balance” looks like, how to “still the body and mind”. Get a torpedo level, and sit and hold it on level for 2 min a day. The bubble will be centered between the lines.
You can buy one for about $1.95 at any hardware store. Or you can download the app on your phone.
You will notice it is subtle movements that take the torpedo level off center and balance. It is also subtle movements that bring you back to center and balance.
Ya see, most people in this world are prone to “knee jerk” reactions. I myself on occasion am too.
What good is meditation of it has no daily function??
Practice the torpedo level. 2 min a day for couple weeks. That gives you 23 hours and 58 min to do what you want. Just sit and look at the bubble and hold it center. After a while close your eyes a few seconds at a time and then open them to see if the bubble is still centerd. Picture the bubble in your mind.
When you can sit still for 10 min and keep the bubble centerd, and visualize it in your mind? You dont need the level anymore.. you are still, balanced, centered and now able to meditate.
Most importantly!!! As you go throughout your day you will notice events, personalities, circumstances tugging on your mental level. And be mindful that it is subtle movements that bring you back to center, balanced, and able to appropriatly respond without surrendering your “peace of mind”. Peace of Mind is the most profitable thing that Meditation offers. Visions and mental clarity, come after one learns to be centerd, balanced and still.
Eveyone applauded. Some stood up. I turned to the “guru”. Smiled, said thank you for your lead, she walked over and gave me a hug and walked off the stage.
Hardley anyone would talk to me the rest of the day though. But i seen a lot of people around campus playing with levels. Lol
A guy asked me yesterday, if i would be interested in doing my own pod cast first, some youtube videos and maybe a show. He says, yoyr voice is “golden” and you are a natural on stage and break things down, so that a 5 year old could understand. I smiled and said, i have been told i have radio voice since i was 13 year old. More times than i can count. I said afa the topics, thats cause i am a kid. Ha ha ha ha! I know these old dudes on the net, that are much smarter than me.
Ha ha.
See ya around.
Finest stuff you’ve shared in a forever or two, Andy. Thank you.
Well, God, ya know… thanks man.
I have been meditating 2 hours a day for over 20 years. IF people really knew the value of it, they would demand it taught in school.
Prayer is the Act of Talking to God. Meditation is the Act of Listening. Everyone is always talking to God or Universe if you prefer, seldom to any listen.
i been on a “walk about” of sorts for the last 3 or 4 years.. thinking about things. Doing some experiments, using myself as “Guinea pig” and Working in ‘other relms’.
Mostly meditating and thinking.
The path is a treacherous one at times. They say, “you have to change everything” to get something new.
Been hanging out alot with probably the richest man i have ever met. Actually a couple of them. *coin toss, really. Whats 50 million dollars a year when you get to the stratosphere.
One wants to take to a resturant he owns in San Diego next weekend. Probably, one of the largest Land Developers in Mexico. Very nice guy. We been talking about life, red heads, brunettes and blonds, kids, cars, trucks, boats, planes etc. Etc.
He says, lets get a weekend pass, some Good food! And a few beautiful women for the weekend.
Funny,
8 months ago, i was rolling around in a 1994 Subaru Legacy L with zip ties holding the lights on. Working on a couple of “Theories”. The “Survival” theory in dangerous situations. And the “bad luck” theory.. exhausting the portion of “bad luck” for a lifetime in one condensed period
Now, im sitting in a multi million dollar home, donated by the dupont family, Eating 5 star meals for free, 3 squares a day, laying at the pool, and chatting with a guy who designs, builds and has built many many 60+++ story commercial and residential buildings all over the world.
Im going to learn how to REALLY golf, next week from a pro PGA fella
And all i did, was meditate, test some very unorthodox “theories”, and spend some a bunch of time Thinking for a few years.
*more will be revealed.
:)
Thanks Andy! I have my own meditation that’s wonderful and took a long time to tune. The level technique is one that I can actually show to others that simply don’t get the whole meditation thing.
I can imagine students wandering aimlessly with their cellphones using the level app, similar to the Pokemon Go craze that happened a few years ago. Fall semester starts in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for the great centering technique Andy.
Oh, goody! The I-Ching mailbox strikes in a timely manner as this arrived yesterday (H):
A tourist went into a San Francisco novelty shop. Looking around, he saw a detailed, life-like, bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but its appearance impressed the tourist so much he decided to buy it.
The tourist took it to the owner and asked “How much for the bronze rat?” “Twelve dollars for the rat, one hundred dollars for the story,” said the owner. The tourist gave the owner twelve dollars saying “I’ll take the rat but you can keep the story.”
As the tourist walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, he noticed that some real rats had crawled out of the sewers and alleys and began following him down the street. This was kind of spooky so he began walking faster.
Within a couple blocks, the pack of rats behind him had grown to thousands, and had began squealing. The tourist began to trot toward the bay. He looked around to see that the rats now numbered in the MILLIONS. The rats were squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.
Annoyed, then scared, the tourist ran onto a dock that went out in the San Francisco bay. He threw the bronze rat as far out into the bay as he could. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jumped into the bay after it, and were all drowned.
The man walked back to the novelty shop. “Aha,” said the owner, “you came back for the story?” “No,” said the tourist, “I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat.”
One of Baltimore’s more notorious landlords, the son-in-law In Chief!!! (Cited for rodent infestation)
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/07/29/jared-kushner-baltimore-properties-kaye-pkg-vpx-lead.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/
Fascinating! Today I learned that both democrats and rats are separate races from the rest of humanity!
If you want to kill rats put a cold can of coke out at dark in a dish and the rats will drink it and die due to there inability to process the carbonation, it will kill them every time.
But will they have earnings?
Let’s send the illegal immigrants to SF, since Mark says there are plenty of jobs. Oh, he forgot to mention, not for them, only for the educated & wealthy Burpley graduates.
This is in reply to Millenium Caller’s question: “Hey Mr. Ure, can you do a “How to have and keep a good job in the greater depression” article?”
Grab a beverage, MC. This is gonna take a few minutes to read…
________________________
The answer to your question is this: Develop a hobby which requires either a necessary or a “vital to survival” skillset, something that’s fun, which you can monetize later, if you have a need to.
Learn to weld and solder, or read a multimeter and schematics, or replace a rotten floor, or that the black wire always goes to the gold screw. When an economy goes Tango-Uniform, nearly everyone loses the ability to buy new stuff. If you have a hobby which involves “fix-it” skills, you will never starve. If you have several such hobbies, you’ll prosper (relative to everyone else.) If you have none, you can NOT have any other necessary hobby (like farming) and prosper, because every time one of your machines breaks, a piece of your farm is going to belong to the person who fixes it. If that person is not “you,” you are eventually going to starve. This is one reason why George talks about tools, repairs, renovations, and ideas on how to build or repair stuff. In a downturn, everybody tightens their belt, but in a Depression, everybody suffers, money gets tight, and black markets and barter become the “economic order of the day.” The person who’s a “Jack of all trades” is King, because he can FIX STUFF, and accept a dozen eggs, or a couple chickens or gallons of gas as payment.
We live in a “disposable economy.” Everything mechanical you can buy today has a finite life expectancy, but unlike stuff made in the past, newer stuff is designed to be thrown away and replaced when it breaks. Because of this, no one under about age 40 (and very few between 40-60) know that just about any kind of household stuff can actually be fixed. The one throwaway exception, if you buy “quality,” is hand tools. A “Pittsburgh” 14mm wrench will turn a 10mm nut just fine, and if it breaks, a new one is as close as Harbor Freight, but a “MAC” wrench will put 150lb/ft of torque on that 10.8 nut which holds the steering rack in place on your car, and it won’t break, and it’s really difficult, driving to HF with your steering gear hanging off your car’s subframe.
Simplify and understand: A wrench is a lever; pliers a pivoted lever; Vice-Grips, a compound pivoted lever. They are some of the simplest machines — so simple, in-fact, that no one who’s not an archaeologist regards them as machines any longer. Nevertheless, they are machines and their function is simply to amplify human force. Learn the lever, pulley, wheel (gear), screw, and hammer.
Becoming a “Jack of all trades” is easy, once you become proficient in just a few skills (principally, proper use of force-multipliers, and becoming able to “see large, but simple.”)
For instance:
A gas grille or stove, or furnace burner, might seem intimidating. However, reduced to its simplest terms, it is a tube, closed at one end with a funnel (venturi) at the other and a row, or rows of holes (jets) along its length. Gas is injected into the tube and its velocity draws air through the venturi. The air it draws is not sufficient for combustion, but once mixed with outside air, the gas/air mixture will burn. It is ignited as it escapes the holes on the outside of the tube and [it] makes a flame. The venturi has a “damper,” a shutter which allows the amount of air that’s sucked into the venturi to be adjusted. If the air mixture is correct, the flame is hot (blue), if not, it’s just warm or sooty, or there’s no flame at all. If there’s combustible gas and something to ignite it, but no (or poor) flame, the damper is too open or too closed, or the gas jet is clogged.
An ICR car is just 400-odd simple machines, bundled into a single wrapper and designed to take a series of controlled explosions, turn them into rotational force, thence power, then use that power to propel the wrapper. A few coupled simple machines dictate the direction the wrapper goes, and a few coupled simple machines determine when (and whether) it stops.
See how this works? You mentally reduce a device to its simplest component machines, localize the problem, then diagnose each simple machine in that area and fix whatever’s wrong.
Once some “engineer” adds several concentric layers of electronics to “add features” to a machine, each layer increases the complexity of the machine exponentially, but under the timer, heat and humidity sensors, recorded voice, and Alexa-compatibility, a toaster is still just a piece of nichrome wire, a bimetallic strip, and a spring, in a box. The electronics can be stripped if they fail, and the remainder repaired. When faced with the alternatives of “no toaster” and “manual toaster,” Susie Homemaker is going to take the toast every time…
You also need to remember stuff. Read how-tos, even about things in which you haven’t an interest. This is one of the best ways to discover new interests. Listen. Say you overhear a conversation between a carpenter and a millwright where they’re discussing the best way to install a new transom in old work? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what a “transom” is; what matters is you’re tapping the knowledge of two professionals, discussing techniques on how to join pieces of wood together.
What difference does it make?
If you replace the clutch “driven plate” in an MGA with that of an early ’50s Riley Pathfinder, you will get a clutch which is more robust and longer-lasting than the MG part, and which outperforms the MG-Racing clutch, and you’ll get it for ~$20, rather than the >$900 cost of the Borg & Beck “competition clutch.” This was one of the “courtesy mods” I made whenever I did a clutch job in an MG TF, A, or early MGB. I figured it out by looking at the Borg-Warner Master Parts Book.
Before computers, one of these books resided in every car parts store in North America. The book listed all the specs of each piece, and I noticed the specifications for the two clutches were identical, except the MG used an 8″ plate and the Riley, an 8½” plate, and that the extra half-inch was around the outer perimeter of the disc (an area which was present, but went unused on both the MG “clutch cover” and the clutch-surface of the flywheel.) That half-inch increased the clutching power and longevity by over 30%, without increasing the pedal pressure or “grab.”
I guarantee you that nowhere else in the world will you ever hear this bit of highly-specialized information, because I am both the “inventor” and was the sole implementer of this performance modification (‘cuz I talked to people from Goleta, to Grand Rapids, to University Motors in the UK, about clutches.) Nobody else did it, and I’ve never mentioned my “clutch mod” publicly, before today.
Are you ever going to need to know this? No, unless you become a mechanic for SCCA Vintage Racing cars. That’s not the point. The point is:
There are 30 million of “me” in the United States — people with a very narrow or one-off, highly-specialized bit of mechanical information which will be lost forever, when we die.
There are another 50 million of “me,” not necessarily exclusive of that aforementioned thirty mil, which work with our hands and learn not-so-specialized, but still very valuable stuff, much of it related to HOW to do something. We figure out a “time saver” or efficiency-multiplier through trial & error and thought, and it becomes so much a part of our “wrench repertoire” we never think about it.
Generally speaking, we offer this stuff we’ve learned to others based on their need and provided they’re willing to ask an intelligent question, then JUST LISTEN. WE know lots of sh!t also, both interchange (redneck) data and process information which will be found in no book, anywhere. Unless someone asks us, that knowledge will also die with us, and succeeding generations will be left to unnecessarily “reinvent the wheel,” when the time comes for them to have one.
Let’s talk about motors:
A mechanical, or electromechanical device is made to run forever. Limitations in physics and manufacturing make it run less-long. When a motor (or lever, actuator, or anything else which engenders a mechanical motion) stops running, it is WORN, BROKEN, or DIRTY, period. Sleeve bearings wear, then its armature runs in a non-linear direction until it binds against, or eats, the field. Ball or roller bearings run dry, then seize or eat themselves. Brushes wear against the commutator, wearing both it and themselves. Motors depend on a small, but constant airflow for cooling. The air inlets get dirty or “lint up” from airborne dust, then the motor overheats.
Bearings are replaceable, so are brushes. Commutator blocks both wear and get dirty – they can be cleaned. Field coils can be removed and rewound, so can armatures (it’s a PITA, but a layman CAN do it, unless he lets it scare him.) Speaking of brushes, there are both AC and DC brushes. They have different characteristics and are not interchangeable (I have made brushes in an emergency with a piece of graphite and a file. It is a very temporary fix but it CAN be done.) Virtually all electric hand tools and appliances made before 1985 use DC motors and contain a rectifier to convert AC line voltage to DC, because direct current allows easy, and “infinite” speed adjustment, without electronics.
Other things to know about motors:
Magnet wire is shellacked. Shellac is soluble in alcohol, but not water or most petroleum-based VOCs.
DC motors are bi-directional. If it turns the wrong way for your purpose, just reverse the wires.
Speaking of DC motors, every DC motor which is not “brushless” is also a generator. If you apply electricity to the brushes, its shaft rotates and it makes work. If you instead apply work (rotation) to its shaft, it makes electricity.
A gift from me: My generation does not accept the existence of the word “can’t.” When something needs done, we do it — may not be pretty or work as efficiently as it could or should, but the job WILL get done and it WILL work. Strike the word “can’t” from your vocabulary and your life, and you will, as Morpheus said in “The Matrix,” “Free your mind.”
And now a gift from my father: “A machine will run forever, unless it is worn, dirty, or broken.” Worn, Dirty, Broken — remember this. It is the key to repairing anything mechanical…
Life is a learning experience. Never be afraid to experience it, even (ESPECIALLY) if it requires “thinking outside the box.” I learned to knit, darn, crochet, and sew, and how to solder wires and read a simple schematic, before I began Kindergarten. Educational toys didn’t exist for 2-5yos, so my grandmother taught me life-skills. One of my brothers took the DeVry mail-order Licensed Electronics Course and I filched, read, and applied his course materials, after he finished with them. I probably couldn’t pronounce “diode” or “triode” but I could recognize their schematic symbols and how they were used in a circuit. I probably also burned myself once or twice, feeding a too-short piece of solder into a terminal strip, before figuring out the soldering gun was hot — It’s called “learning.” One of the huge failures of contemporary society is kids aren’t allowed to hurt themselves or screw-up.
After high school I decided I wanted to learn how to weld. I also figured once the economy began to tank it’d be a good “fallback skill.” I took the “survey” class at night school (and excelled at gas welding) followed by the welding program at the local voc school (cost was <$100 at that time for the 4-class program.) When we were doing gas, I p!ssed the instructor off. He liked to pick a new student out, give him or her five minutes of instruction and a couple pieces of quarter inch stainless, and have him try to weld a "T" joint, then break it apart with a hammer while explaining to the class that stainless couldn't be welded with gas. He picked me. My "T" joint didn't break…
A couple years later, I decided I should learn how to do automotive body and paint work. There was an amazing body-man not too far away. Being single and working nights, I volunteered to push a broom for him for a few months. Within a couple days, he was showing me how to mask and block. Within a week I was learning hammer & dolly work, then PROPER use of Bondo and a body rasp. When he found out I could weld, I learned how to gas and MIG-weld thin steel without warping it. Finally, he taught me how to paint. FREE INSTRUCTION from a known expert!! It cost time I'd otherwise have wasted, and helped him immensely at a time when he was buried in work.
Thinking outside the box can apply to a lot of things. My daughter wanted a tub to stash her GO-bag and camp supplies in, in her trunk. I bought her a 17gal "Toughbox" which fit the space perfectly. She "couldn't use it" because it was an inch too short for the lid to fit. I took the lid off, turned it upside-down and put it back on, and it fit perfectly (the Toughbox has guide tabs on its lid, and corresponding slots in the box-rim, so the lid can be installed either side up.) She must've stared at me for a full minute before saying "That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of it." My answer: "Because you are a slave to the limitations you set in your mind…"
A few years ago, I needed a bung wrench. 'Got a junk combination wrench and a 2" pipe cap, welded the solid end of the cap to the box-end and cut back the threaded end with a die-grinder, to leave two ½" and two ¾" tabs, which fit the bungs of both types of barrel I had, perfectly. My son watched me do this, staring in amazement when I did it, and again when it worked. He's swiped that bung wrench several times, to show it off to his friends.
There is ALWAYS a way to do whatever it is you wish or need to do. Don't ever fall into the "Millenials' trap" and build a wall in your mind, to hide your vision of the path to an objective.
THIS is what I meant, when I said "can't" doesn't exist. If you don't accept "can't," you'll never have to…
BTW, forgot to mention, I was a full-time college student holding down two part-time jobs, when I took those welding classes. “Force multipliers” can work with “time” as well as with seeking a mechanical advantage.
Hi, George,
Thanks to Ray for his excellent posts. He is a visionary with machines. Seems like he “sees” solutions in his mind and then executes them well. I have a friend who fixes and operates a race car, and he told me that his car can “automatically” shift into the higher gears without the aid of a clutch. I find that remarkable.
Thanks also to Andy for his wonderful posts on meditation. I meditate every morning but not for two hours, as I feel it is important to meditate several times throughout the day.
Nancy, I’m just a guy. I’ve done a lot of stuff, most of it to keep from starving or to work toward a goal, ‘same as any other guy or gal my age. If I have a special talent, it is that I remember stuff which others forget.
BTW, your friend’s technique is called “speed shifting.” Anyone can do it, once they get over the fear of what will happen to their transmission if they “miss” the shift. I learned it when I was 19 or 20 and hanging out with a sportscar crowd, because one of my friends in the group was also a drag racer. I never drove drag cars, so not-clutching was of much less use to me than double-clutching, but it is neat to watch.
Thank you for the kind words…
“I decided I wanted to learn how to weld”
I still have to go to welding school.. something I have always wanted to learn..
I have been down the same road you have to.. wouldn’t change a one of them…
the school I will be trying to get signed up for is plumbing and HVAC.. now everyone asks me why I would want to.. around here you cannot get a plumber to just come repair something.. if it is broke.. then they want you to buy new not repair.. so getting a plumber out to work on something.. phew.. not going to happen.. to get a repair done you have to wait till new housing slows down and new install’s slow down.. until then.. your going to have to wait or do it yourself..
I told all the grand kids.. become an air conditioning..plumber etc.. then sell service contracts.. offer a thirty percent discount for ten bucks a month.. because getting a plumber out for repairs is so hard.. you could have a thousand households plus sign up instantly.. make ten grand a month and not have to crawl out of bed.. give them a twelve hour window for emergencies and a forty eight hour window for non emergencies..
Ray- What separates a depression from a recession is the presence of runaway credit deflation, and liquidation of debt. In a 1929 through 1934 type scenario, expect most debt, good, bad or otherwise to be liquidated. The giant corporate business engines are fueled by a steady supply of cheap credit, and debt slave customers waving handfuls of other peoples money (OPM). The current crop of corporate giants are not going to fare well in a deflationary depression.
Local businessmen I talk to are seeing a resurgence of homegrown businesses. Some of those local businesses even hire US citizens at fair wages. Imagine that.
Employment prospects in the future may revert to favoring employment near the home, with modest, but fair income. Keep your eyes open for local opportunities, because sometimes the best jobs are tucked away in a low-key local industrial park, with a low overhead for you which compensates for the moderate wage rates.
Andy- Keep up the good work. Is that what you thought I would say?
“What separates a depression from a recession”
…And famine, or at least a significant drop-off in the availability of food, kinda like we’re going to see this fall through next year.
“Andy- Keep up the good work. Is that what you thought I would say?”
What gets me is not the OPM “fuel” on the fires, but the amazing spreads, and how they are (apparently) not generating amazing profits. Usedta see adverts for 2.9 and 3.9 APR ccard offers all the time. I read a couple months back the “average” for ccard offers is now 22.6%. Banks don’t lose money, so with Prime in the 6’s or 7’s, they were making money @ 2.9%. I’ve seen ccard offers as high as 37.6%, and kids are jumping on them. That’s flat usury, and has to be pulling a breathtaking amount of profit for the banksters. They can’t be losing it all on junk mortgages, so where’s the money going? Creative accounting? Caymens? I dunno, but it wouldn’t sour my coffee if they all took one in the teeth…
I don’t think my family ever went hungry in the depression, but they did have a mortgage loan called in, and had to relocate nearby. My father used to make claims about walking to school barefoot in the snow, but my mother would cut off that BS by telling him my grandmother always made sure he had good shoes to wear, and was likely spinning in her grave.
I normally associate depression era famine with unemployment without a social safety net as all American schoolkids have been taught, but on the supply side, natural disaster and a breakdown in credit for farm loans would certainly cut supplies, raise prices and exacerbate the situation severely. Credit deflation does not exclude the possibility of hyperinflation for necessities. Runaway credit deflation and spiraling unemployment along with natural disaster coupled with hyperinflation of household necessities is probably the worst possible scenario. Many of those elements were present in the 1929 through 1934 period, but don’t think that because we have the social safety net in place that the net can’t be shredded with a vote of the legislature.
Maybe we are all starting to see evidence of the beginnings of the spiral down to come. A sobering thought, if nothing else.
‘Thing is, when food for the “safety net” doesn’t exist, it’ll make a really big hole in said net. I don’t yet know how bad it’s gonna get. I do know (at least according to the radio “Ag-Reports”) that Midwestern farmers are dumping hogs @ 200 pounds under “ideal weight” right now because they can’t get Porky to tip the scale, and are trying to cut their losses before things get much worse…
My folks went through the Depression on the East Coast. Dad made $13/week — not much, but enough to pay the rent and keep them out of the bread lines. It was only after the War began that my Dad could barter for enough ration stamps, to buy enough gas, to escape to the Midwest. The swath of the country between the Mississippi and the Appalachians went through the Depression pretty much unscathed, because Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington, Birmingham, and other such cities were agricultural hubs — not yet transportation hubs, and farming was still a “Mom & Pop” sorta business…
George,
New Zealand had the massacre 136 days ago on March 15. The profile of the perps in Gilroy look the similar at this point. If that holds up, are we seeing patterns in patterns?
‘Dodging’ the spray of bullets, don’t overlook the East Coast!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brooklyn-shooting-1-killed-11-injured-in-shooting-at-block-party-in-brownsville-playground/
Neither Coast beats the Midwest! (8 killed, 40 wounded)
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/7/29/8932733/weekend-shootings-july-26-july-29-2019
Of course, the majority of homicides are young black men and ignored by nat’l press.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-homicides-data-tracker-htmlstory.html
http://vpc.org/studies/blackhomicide19.pdf (75% knew their attacker)
Perhaps Baltimore is being set up as the second “sacrifice Zone” on the east coast after Camden NJ. Rats are not a political issue, that is another WMD, weapon of mass distraction, that is so effective on the American public. Among my friends, whenever one of these insignificant issues goes national, we always start looking around to see what they are diverting attention from.
If you don’t know what a sacrifice zone is, watch this from 7 years ago.
https://vimeo.com/46079167
As an American, awareness of this will change your life. Sacrifice zones are the ONLY viable solution to the problems we are seeing in the west coast cities (and elsewhere). The cost of rehabilitation and training of these homeless is greater than they can ever contribute to the country.
As a senior with a fixed income, when the dollar devalues while your numbers stay the same, there will be a sacrifice zone for you, a place where you will be fed regularly to attract you, but the living facilities will be third world. If not you, then certainly someone you know.