Colorado Joins Cali, N.Y., Ill

 For 2022, Colorado joined the abovementioned 3 states in having more people move out than in. The overall population moved up a bid, but the moving stats tell the story.

The story about Denver being swamped with illegals is too new to show up on these graphs, but next years numbers should be eye-popping.

Inflation

 The legacy news, T.V., radio, print, etc, reports the state of the economy monthly, frequently with a caveat like "Ignoring the volatile food and energy sectors..." which means that if you don't have to eat or drive to work, you're not getting hurt. As much.

Bloomberg is reporting that 3 years of Bidenomics has upped the cost of living by an average of 20%:

Bloomberg reported the goods and services price increases:

• Ground beef costs $5.23 on average, up from $3.89 in January 2020.
• Coffee is up some $2 a pound. Fruits and vegetables are about 14 percent higher.
• Electric bills spiked 25 percent since January 2020.
• Natural gas is up 29 percent since January 2020.
• Car insurance is up 33 percent since 2020.
• Hotel prices are up 15 percent since 2020.
• Grocery and electricity prices are both up 25 percent since January 2020.
• Used car prices have climbed 35 percent since 2020.
• Auto insurance is up 33 percent, and rents are up roughly 20 percent since 2020.

Another way of looking at this is to note that the purchasing power of the dollar has gone down about 14%. I bet you haven't gotten 14% in pay increases in the last 3 years, now have you.

TEOTWAWKI - Covid: We're All Gonna Die!

Found this just now. Seems the HIV virus, which is widely used as a genetic modification agent, works well with the Covid virus to produce large numbers of Covid variants. https://tinyurl.com/bs7vyrvc. 

Now all we need to do is wait for the pair to produce an easily transmissible variant with a 100% mortality rate. All you writers out there, write the book and sell it while there are still people alive to buy it!

The Value Of Women

 In Afghanistan anyway, the price is quite low as people are discovering that with the Taliban firmly in charge, there is little work to be had. 

“I received an offer from a shop owner, a man I knew had no children,” Nazir continued. “He offered 20,000 afghans [Afghan currency, AFN] for my daughter Safia to live with him and work in his shop. If I ever get the 20,000 Afghans to buy her back, he said I could. But I can’t sell my daughter for that low a price, so I asked for 50,000. We are still discussing. She may have a better future working in a shop than staying with me, and the price may save my family.”

50,000 AFN is roughly $576.43

Taliban have been in charge now for only a couple of weeks. Care to speculate what a child might bring come winter? 

Summer Blizzard?

 OK here's the MWS prediction for the daily high temps this coming week:

Accompanying the slight cooling off will be a predicted 5.8" of snow. Note that no local trees have shed any leaves. Also lots of fruit and veggies in peoples gardens are going to take a beating. Low temps are forecast to be down to 29 degrees although only for a couple hours and with everything buried under all that snow, maybe we won't lose ALL of our home grown food.

So tons of broken limbs, damaged cars and houses, and probably power outages. Who had Early Ice Age in the disaster pool?

Yet Another Ammo Shortage

 Just contacted my usually reliable supplier of powder and primers. Got told I'm out of luck. Seems the ammo manufacturers have first dibs on the output of the primer suppliers, and they're taking all of it. No rifle or pistol primers of any kind at all.

When the zombies arrive, aim carefully.

Biden Calls For Military Coup!

Well, O.K. this is actually a fun with headlines post. Breitbart puts this up:

Biden: Military Will Remove Trump From W.H.

The actual story following the Breitbart link isn't nearly as exciting. More like a work of bad Science Fiction in Bidens head.

During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden said that he has thought about what would happen if he won the election and President Trump refused to leave office and that he believes the military would remove President Trump “from the White House with great dispatch” if such a scenario took place.

When you think about it, Trump has refused to leave the office for 3-1/2 years now and I suppose the Donks are beginning to think that he won't. After all if it was them, they wouldn't now would they?

As long as we're cooking up conspiracies, how about this: The Wuhan Flu was developed by the Chinese at the request of the Clintonistas as a last-ditch effort to make Trump look bad by destroying all his economic gains. Makes as much sense as anything Biden has come up with so far.

In Memorium

Last night my friend and companion of the last 14 years was diagnosed with cancer which had advanced to massive internal bleeding.

Friday she could barely make it around my block. Saturday she did about a mile and seemed to be improving, Sunday she collapsed and couldn't get up. The vet said she likely would not make it through today so last night we had her put down. She was everybodys friend and will be greatly missed.

Now I have to walk myself those 600-800 miles/year and completely wash my own dishes.

The Economy - Didja Notice?

On election day, the Dow stood at 26,180 and change. Today, as of 10:03 EST, it's at 23,900, a loss of 2880 points.

The Dems don't get to start warming their chairs in the House for another month yet, and the Dow is down 11%. You'd think the Dems had taken the whole banana and Hillary was about to name BHO as her chief economic adviser. Still, the DJIA is a forward-looking indicator so maybe the market mavens see something coming that we don't, and the MSM won't.

Remember, if the market crashes, the only thing to change is the makeup of the House so that would be the place to lay the blame.

Since taxation and spending bills originate in the House, and the House seems to be preparing for 2 years of all out effort to overturn the results of the '16 election and nothing else, maybe there is some cause to worry.

Trumps Rabbit Trick

So Trump just signed a budget bill worth $1.3T that looks like it was written by Schumer and Pelosi and gives conservatives nothing while taking care of every pony under the Christmas tree the Dems asked for.

It's not often you see a pol commit political suicide right out there in front of everybody. The last time was when Bush signed a big tax increase after promising "no new taxes, read my lips". Didn't work out well for Bush now did it? At this point I can see little reason for Republicans to even go to the polls for the mid terms if they think that this is the way the party will be treating them. The local parties will be pleading for turnout claiming that the local pols will be forthright in defense of their constituents, but by now we've seen that local candidates who get elected by promising this or that, vote the party line in lockstep with the leadership once they sit down in the big building and this is true at both the state and Federal levels.

To save the day, Trump is going to have to pull from his hat, a rabbit big enough to trample and eat Manhattan, and do it before the mid terms. I can only think of one thing that might serve at this point and that would be an indictment against Hillary Clinton. For good measure, perhaps include a few of her enablers. The budget deal has foreclosed on most of Mr Trumps other political promises and his tax reform phase 2 is probably destined for death by committee as the Dems have little else to ask for at this point. Absent this rabbit or something of equal import, I anticipate a veto-proof Dem majority in both houses of congress next year.

The budget bill impact at the local level will vary by state of course, but here in Colorado where we are fending off becoming East California by one Senate seat, this will most likely translate into another Dem trifecta similar to 2013 with a raft of bills imported from California, paid for by Styer and Bloomberg whooped through a compliant legislature.

I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of the rabbit. I am also hoping that my near perfect record of being wrong on predictions will hold up.

Update: As noted in the comments, the bill passed is NOT a real budget and the monies authorized are NOT guaranteed to be spent as wished. See Post on dailytimewaster.

Market Movements

The market declined today by the largest number of points in its history, for a one day move.

Big Whoop.

Bills Law of Election Year* Rhetoric states that if someone is citing raw numbers to you, the real story or lack of same is in the percentages, and vice versa. Here's a handy chart showing some of the more memorable market drops:

Today the Dow lost 1175 points, the biggest one day drop in history. But wait, that's a drop of 4.6% which is hardly noticeable.  For comparison, look at numbers 2, 4, and 5. Total drop was 90.42 points but add the percentages and you see a 34.47% drop. Now we're talking. OK that isn't entirely fair since each percentage is from the previously reduced total, still...

I had just gotten in to stock investing when the 1987 crash hit. That one rates #1 on the chart and it was sobering to see that much of my money disappear for no real apparent reason. The panic was great enough that the phone line to my broker was jammed and I couldn't get through to join the lemmings jumping off the cliff. Just as well as the market rebounded shortly thereafter. So while in physics, what goes up at less than escape velocity, must come down, In the market it's what goes down for no reason, eventually comes back up again. This applies generally to the market as a whole. The exception to this is individual stocks which can certainly go down and vanish in a cloud of paper.

The bright side of this is that most stocks are now on sale at 4.5-5% off. Hmmmm. 5% off. Would you go to a store selling anything for a 5% off sale? OTOH if you call your broker and buy one of the market index funds, there's a good chance you'll pick up 5% over the next 6 months or so which is way better than you'll do on a CD from your bank.

*Pretty much every year seems to be an election year or a run up to one any more.

New Frontiers In Marketing Fake News

I was subscribed to an offshoot of the Washington Post, referred to in some circles as the National Laughingstock. This also gets me a news (?) letter called the Post Most, presumably hot topics from the paper. If I want to persue one of the articles, a click transfers me to their sign in page which offers me 2 social media subscription models and a login button in case I'm already registered, which I am.

Click the login button and I'm transferred to yet another page trying to sell me something I don't want, and still not a sign of the article I wanted to read or a path to it.

Today I gave up. If they don't actually want me to read their rag, then fine, I unsubscribed it. Seems counter productive to getting their messages out though.

Economic News - Mine

To no ones surprise at all I have been informed that since the project I was hired to work on has been such a smashing success, my contract will end at the end of this month unless I find someone else to pick me up.

As has been noted: The better and faster, an engineer does his job, the sooner he's out of it.

I retired almost 3 years ago so I suppose I can do it again. If blogging suddenly stops, it will be because D'wife got tired of me pacing around the house and messing up the kitchen. Invitations to a big pulled pork barbecue party should be regarded with suspicion.

Meantime note the endorsement for Billlls Bullseye Sight for you Ruger shooters.

Expensive Weekend

Which wouldn't be so bad if the money were being spent on hookers and blow or some such, but no, the Pretentious British car in in the British car shop to get it to run on all 8 cylinders, the pickup in in the generic auto shop to get the brakes to work on all 4 wheels, and I get to travel about on a motorcycle on a weekend with an aggregate 75% chance of rain culminating in 1-3" of snow.

Did I mention the plumber? He has already come and gone and his presence wasn't cheap either.

My turn in the barrel I guess.

Everything You Need To Know About Islam

Islam is a religion of peace:

Doesn't this look peaceful? It's a university in Kenya where they obviously need to pass a rule preventing people from carrying weapons on campus.

Oh wait...

Gun Law - Colorado

As long as the Dems hold one of the three legislative bodies, and they currently hold two, their attitude is unchanged in that they feel they don't need to listen to Republicans at all. HB15-049 (business use of deadly force), HB15-009 (repeal the magazine ban), HB15-086 (CBI NFA certificate), and HB15-050 (repeal the background check) bills are all in the house kill committee and are not expected to survive so bad gun law holds firm in Colorado.

There is a bill coming up to reform the gerrymandering redistricting process here which actually seems to have some bipartisan support. Cynical me expects the bipartisan part to evaporate as soon as someone points out to the Dem leadership that statistically Colorado is a red state by a modest margin and a fair election would result in a Republican trifecta at the state level.

On a possibly related note, Magpul, who moved part of it's operations out of Colorado after the last batch of gun bills were passed, has announced that it will produce a 60 round magazine for AR-pattern rifles this year in drum format. In a flash, Extreme Gear Labs, located in Colorado Springs, which produces bags and pouches for the tactically inclined, has announced that it will be producing a hook-and-loop pouch to hold two of the D60 magazines to your Bat Belt.

It's called the EGL Hickenloop Pouch named for our spineless governor who signed the bills.

The Big Bengazi

Last report there were about 100 private contractors on Balad Air Force Base in Iraq, yelling frantically for help as they are surrounded by the ISIS army, a band of head-chopping evangelists.

This time the time scale is more drawn out and the media have gotten into positions where they can watch and report pretty much as it happens. The president has said he will send no help at all as the Iraqi Air Force attempts to evacuate the contractors from the base.  The problem is that the ISIS folks by now have heavy machine guns on trucks which would make landing a slow, lumbering C-130 a really questionable proposition.

Pilots all know this and finding one has become a problem as well.

So here we are again, with the administration no doubt looking for a video maker to toss in jail or perhaps getting ready to offer the entire population of Gitmo in exchange for the contractors which would be seen as slightly better than simply issuing them all presidential pardons on his way out the door.

Or the Iraqi government may pull the rabbit out of the turban and beat back the insurgents with help from the Iranians, no less.

By November of 2016, what difference will it make?

Avast! Reboot Loop

Google and Microsoft are temporarily not quite on speaking terms with one another. The last update to Googles Avast anti-virus loads normally on Win XP machines, then when it reboots the machine it gets as far as the opening screen then reboots again. And again. And again.

The fix is to hit F8 early in the reboot process, start the machine in safe mode, delete Avast from your program set, then restart your machine.

I've been using Zone Alarm for a firewall and Avast for anti-virus, so when I did this, ZA took over the antivirus function. If you're not using two systems, the process may have you running naked until you can find a replacement for Avast.

I presume that at some point this bug will be addressed. I like Avast and have never had a problem up to this point. If you can load the previous version of Avast, then fine, just ignore the pitches regarding available updates until you hear that the bug has been addressed.

Inflation

According to the government, it's near zero, which is why I'm getting a 1.5% raise in my SS allowance. The way that figure is calculated has been changed repeatedly in order to keep the government from looking bad. Over at Theo Spark there's this:

Someone who is actually trustworthy, John Williams of ShadowStats, says that if inflation was calculated the way it was under Jimmy Carter it would run between 8 and 10 percent.

- The inflation calculation has been changed many times since 1978, and the purpose each time was to make it 'appear' as though inflation was lower than it actually was. "Officially" of course. [Inflation's a lot like the phony BLS unemployment numbers, or the initial enrollment numbers that were touted for ObamaCare...two other win-wins by Gooberment.]

Shadow Stats is behind a paywall but what gets out suggests it's worth the money. Remember the "misery Index"? Made up of the sum of the inflation rate and the unemployment rate it got to the point that it eventually unseated Jummy Carter. Current unemployment, which by the way has also been jiggered to look better, is at 7.8%. Add that to the 9% inflation rate and we're up to 16.8. Be honest about the unemployment rate and call it 16% (U6) and the misery index is a whopping 25.

This index got up to 19.9 for J.C. There's a chart, which is worthless given the tomfoolery and book cooking that's been going on, here.

It's Getting Deep Around Here

So here's a song about too much water:

I've been looking for an excuse to put this up anyway.

At the rate they're going, chunks of Boulder will soon be located in Nebraska, which won't be all bad, at least from my point of view. In a state that gets 28" of precipitation a year, they're calling for 6-9 more inches overnight tonight. That's a lot of water.

I'm up on a hill so no fear there.