@Sima

I put this comment on the wrong thread this am:

"There are current costs, future costs, and opportunity costs. I haven't heard administration officials, including pentagon officials, or even the traditional defense industry think tankers discuss any of these in any meaningful terms. They are still on autopilot after wasting untold trillions in the previous wars." There are no do-overs in real life. Once it's gone, it's gone.

Fuel was 4.59 as of yesterday. A couple of the big box outlets offer maybe 20 cents less, if you want to wait in line. Ms. So has reported recently that some meat prices have doubled in recent months. She said beef ribs (kalbi) were 84 dollars to prepare a dinner for four. We don't usually eat that way (almost never), too expensive. Well we used to, when prices were much less. Skirt steak, generous portions for four, 45 dollars. Someone in the family still likes to eat that way, so we notice the price when we visit, and bring dinner with us. One of the chains, Sams I think, has a loss leader on broiled whole chickens, it's around 5 dollars, ready to eat. Doubt if that will last.

I listened to a video last night by a high school dropout who demonstrated more knowledge concerning the Florida real estate market than most experts I've heard. I'm learning the hard way, humble pie. Why is it that most RE new sales were by the new home builders? Did you know that the biggest new home builders are basically owned by the big wall street investment firms? The fine for employing immigrants unlawfully is 1000 a day. Small builders can't afford it. So the increased enforcement of immigration laws tends to enforce the monopoly. 1000 a day is nothing to them. They are or at least were buying up used homes and renting them. When the builders disappear on a weekday, we joke about this, only half kidding. Is ICE in town?

The big builders/investment houses have their fingers in all aspects of the pie, the mortgage market, the insurance, setting up the HOAs, the CDDs, etc. The latter in particular, transfers developer costs to homeowners. In all both enticement and trap. The local governments go along for the revenues. I just learned from someone who specializes in covering the legislature, that the chairman of the appropriations committee in the legislature, the person blocking the tax relief for homeowners, is from this very area. What a surprise, not! My belief is the gov isn't serious. So who is running things here really? The big Wallstreet investment houses. You know the names. I know a small builder personally, he offered me a no hoa new home, about 125 miles south of here. I declined, it might as well be on the other side of the moon, and defeats the purpose of moving here altogether. The traffic is unbelievable. I can't stand it.

I did notice after the devastating hurricane in 2022 the huge increase in insurance costs. New home builders get much lower insurance costs by the underwriters. Mortgage lenders won't lend on older homes because the insurance costs are prohibitive. I think a lot of closings fail on this basis for used homes. No insurance, no mortgage. So, as a practical matter insurance costs keeps a lot of people from purchasing homes, along with the high property taxes. The politicians here promise tax relief but it never comes. So the old timers stay in their old homes, forego insurance, and keep their grandfathered in low tax assessments. I knew this and don't blame them at all.

However, at my age, even though I too am in survival mode, had to move to be near family for the next disaster, natural or otherwise. I understand some in laws will be moving here too in the near future. They have two infant children. We're too old to manage the consequences of another disaster alone, no matter what it is. I hope I never have to move again. I wish my neighbors old and new, luck with the next hurricane season. The last two killed a few, injured others. We still have nightmares about flooding. We're too old to lug sandbags anymore.

The morning cereal I eat doubled in price in the last several months, so I made a concession, eat brand X at half the price. So Ms. So brings home the same expensive cereal and puts it on the table yesterday. I told her, I don't need to eat this anymore, it costs too much. Ms So says "you only live once, live it up!"

Just for the spectacle, the video below (about 2 min). I don't really enjoy BTS, ignored the fanfare here recently about their visit, but Zocalo Plaza is beautiful-

Thanks for the OT Sima.

Hope everyone is having a great day! We are doing ok here, lots of yard work to get done. What's up? Let us know!

@fire with fire

a blue-team sweep. Who knows? I'm cynical enough at this point to believe that even if it does, all that will change is that the blue-team spokesmodels will use a different set of lies to describe what is going on than those the red-team spokesmodels currently use, while the reality on the ground will not change materially.

Trump will do what Trump will do, and the blue-team imbeciles appear to be just fine with it. They just want the wheel to turn so that *they* get the chance to do it, rather than watching him do it. It is truly a distinction without a difference. And the rest of us will continue to suck hind tit, as always.

Electoral politics will not resolve this situation, since the Uniparty self-sorts for only those candidates who will wholeheartedly and full-throatedly support the status quo. Thus, my lack of interest in the primaries: we already know how the blue-team primaries will come out, by hook or by crook. Realistically, the best we will get is to choose the next (junior) rotating villain. The senior rotating villains are unassailable, as they will never face a realistic challenge...

I truly wish that it were not so. I'm right there with you on the "other plans" thing...

well over 7 bucks at the convenient Exxon station across the street from the Beverly Center.
On Feb. 28, the cheap place was selling regular gas paid in cash or with debit card for $4.09.9.
Beyond that, I have not noticed much inflation at he grocery store, but of course things are just starting to get ugly.

I don't think it matters at all, but I was wrong about the American power structure. I could not imagine the billionaire class actually letting a POTUS fuck everything up. I still think Big Money will ultimately pull the plug on this clown, Trump.

The other half of my personal paranoia was that Trump is a poison pill whose job is to crash the American Empire to make for the Global Rule of Money over a much smaller global population. Trump is doing that job too well, and unless he gets removed from office soon, the whole shebang is going to crash.

There's a lot of noise now of people hoping for a Democratic Sweep to put a halt to Trump's excesses. I wouldn't mind seeing a blue tidal wave this November, but Trump might just cancel Congress as a Fake Something or other. Civil war type shit.

I had other plans.

@fire with fire Here's the link:

https://indi.ca/whats-not-happening-with-iran/

It's worth a full read. CA, by the way, has the worst economy in the nation, or maybe they're tied with Louisiana... it was discussed in Butch Ware's interview on Due Dissidence:

If there's a smaller clip available I'll post it instead. The Ware interview is at the beginning.

The problem is, of course, billionaires. California would be a decent place to live -- indeed it WAS a decent place to live. My parents had a real community of nice people out in Claremont out at the east end of Los Angeles County. But by the time my Mom (born 1937) died toward the end of 2018, my parents' community was either dead or dying or (in one case) moved to New Mexico. There are still a few remnants of my extended family in Washington State.

What happened was, of course, that, back in the Seventies, there was a choice: a better world, or more capitalism. And the clear choice that was made for California was more capitalism, and practically nobody dissented. The fig leaf passed to preserve community: Proposition 13. Well, it's 2026, and that community, my parents' community, the community whose life Proposition 13 extended, is either dying or dead. California is now like: this is, from the evidence of the eyes, no place to live, as none of the boutique stores that once catered to the under-six-figures-per-year crowd can afford to do business in the state anymore. Half the storefronts at the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz are empty, though there are plenty of unhoused people outside of them. A place like San Francisco has money, but the people have left for the land of work-remotely-at-home, or they're on the streets. And then of course you have the Hell that was made of the state's universities by the Zionist billionaires sitting on the boards of trustees, the country's most expensive gasoline outside of maybe Hawaii or Alaska, and the vast tax regime used to supportt the state's numerous prisons. But the impression given off by the Zillow listings is STILL that Cali is the world's most incredible place evah!

Y'all still in Cali are going to be hurt really hard by the coming downturn, that is if you aren't yet living on SNAP benefits while spending nights in your vehicles.

well over 7 bucks at the convenient Exxon station across the street from the Beverly Center.
On Feb. 28, the cheap place was selling regular gas paid in cash or with debit card for $4.09.9.
Beyond that, I have not noticed much inflation at he grocery store, but of course things are just starting to get ugly.

I don't think it matters at all, but I was wrong about the American power structure. I could not imagine the billionaire class actually letting a POTUS fuck everything up. I still think Big Money will ultimately pull the plug on this clown, Trump.

The other half of my personal paranoia was that Trump is a poison pill whose job is to crash the American Empire to make for the Global Rule of Money over a much smaller global population. Trump is doing that job too well, and unless he gets removed from office soon, the whole shebang is going to crash.

There's a lot of noise now of people hoping for a Democratic Sweep to put a halt to Trump's excesses. I wouldn't mind seeing a blue tidal wave this November, but Trump might just cancel Congress as a Fake Something or other. Civil war type shit.

I had other plans.