caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Afternoon folks!

There's a bunch of great stuff this week. Starting off, we've got two women blues belters from different generations of the blues, Koko Taylor and Big Maybelle. After that we've got a 1968 album from a fellow known as the father of the British blues, Alexis Korner followed by a mid-70's album from harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite. Then there's a great album from guitarist Wilko Johnson (from Dr. Feelgood) and Roger Daltrey (from the Who) and Creedence Clearwater Revival's first album. After that, there's a late career album from Lonnie Mack and we finish up with a rock album from guitarist Chris Spedding.

Enjoy the tunes and have a great weekend!

I had such an intense work week, I didn't get to dig deeply into current events.

I am still here, which is a verification no nukes dropped this week. I intend to keep on top of this.

Nevertheless, the constant hints that, ya know, we have nukes, is incessant. (I ain't scared, sonsofbitches. Nice try.)

A client, age 85, came in this week to sign her will, and we talked about bird feeders, and she is inundated with red birds. I asked if she ever called them cardinals, and she fell out laughing.

So, red bird fledglings, rabbit sightings, a three day break from thunderstorms, a zydeco concert coming up Sunday, and four cases settling without trial...and, walnut caterpillars!

On a pecan tree at my office! I have 4 on the property! Read up on them and what they do to pecan orchards in Texas, and you'll see why I resorted to poison immediately! Got them all! Not one of those devastating caterpillars escaped, but my pecan trees did. Not a fan of poison, but they were at the point of a next stage, had to be sprayed with Sevin right then. I headed straight to the feed store as soon as we identified them. Everything we read said not one should get a crawl away.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Before last week's camera club meeting at the photo arts building in Balboa Park I stopped by the park's rose garden with the macro lens hoping to find lots of bugs. Unfortunately it was a slow bug day and I didn't find much. Oh well. Some days you bite the bear and some days the bear bites you.
Since the pickin's were so slim I included a few (#3 & #6) from a previous visit to the cactus garden.

Staring into the abyss

I cannot simply ignore this date, the date of the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Castile (Spain). This treaty divvied up all newly discovered and yet undiscovered lands outside of Europe between Portugal and Castile.

The FDIC released it's first quarter report last week, and it had some interesting reveals.

Read and Watch

Recent Reads:
Matt Stoller recently wrote an article for the Guardian called 'Corporations are forcing Americans to pay more for less – in their own words'. It's worth a read; it dives into the proof that's available that the high prices (a very recent example, utility prices going up) and bad economy many of us are feeling are real, despite all the good stuff like more jobs, etc.

I wasn't at all surprised to learn that big business groups are conspiring/plotting through price-fixing to make us pay more on things like gasoline, housing, utilities, meat/food, hotels and more. I wish more people in power would pay attention to this, but that's a pipe-dream, isn't it?

Stoller concludes:

There are also a number of concrete steps policymakers can take to respond to this price-fixing.

The first is to arrest or sue the offending executives for criminal activity.

The second is to strengthen price-fixing and merger laws, allow more private class-action suits, force judges to speed up cases and increase the budget of antitrust enforcers to make collusion more difficult.

The third is to reform the Federal Reserve so policymakers there stop using macro-economic models that avoid considerations of profits and price-fixing.

And the fourth is, frankly, political. One key reason there is action on these schemes is because Biden has prioritized antitrust enforcement. He hasn’t put enough into antitrust, and he doesn’t talk about it very often. But he should, or else Americans are likely to fall into the trap of thinking that what is good for big business is good for their pocketbooks, when the opposite is so often the case.