One year ago today: November 6, 2022, an incomplete post.
Five years ago today: November 6, 2018, selling straw, it’s amazing.
Nine years ago today: November 6, 2014, they should have worked.
Random years ago today: November 6, 2009, Marion called.
Had things gone according to the plans of 2018, I would today be in North Dakota, traveling west. Let’s see, the 8th is day after tomorrow. On November 8, 1973, I left Spell (Kalispell), Montana, never to return. Fifty years ago. That was before I kept this journal, but I did some writing. In a letter to RofR, I recall describing the place to be “like Texas or Calgary. A great place if you got money and know people, otherwise, mercilessly inhospitable.” It was also 41 years ago this month I was forced to delay my education. A funny piece of news came in this morning, where a cost-effectiveness study compared the lifelong results of trade school versus medical school. The plumber came out ahead.
That’s nine bottles at $8 each plus $22 for the whiskey, that’s $94. On the upside, the rat was better-looking and better company than most women I could have spent $100 on around here. I don’t drink whiskey but I’ll bet that bottle of Seagram’s is enough to make somebody shed a tear. Overall, no big deal, hundred dollar lessons are a dime a dozen nowadays.
Trump now has significant leads in the five major “battleground” states. The media is changing tack to say the Democrats “can’t win” if Biden runs again. That’s a joke, they can’t win no matter who runs. Trump has exposed their old tactics and they have no new ones. I examined a piece of property in Tennessee, now dropped from $160,000 to $73,000. If it was just twenty miles closer to town. It’s confirmed, your average McDonald’s burger with fries and soda now averages over $16. Then again, most of it is because they had to start paying their employees a living wage.
I suspect Starbucks is concealing massive losses over this. Don’t expect sympathy from me because these businesses focused their business models on low wages from day one. That is not the “American way”, which says business efficiency should be the profit motive. The US is borrowing $776 million until end of the year, but again, don’t say who has the resources to lend that kind of money. There is a meme saying banks collected $30 billion in overdraft fees last year—taking money away from those who don’t have enough. House prices in Tennessee continue to drop, but are still priced three times what they are worth. Say, did I mention we have another crop of papaya? Help yourself, just be careful with the ladder.
That ugly bank dude Sam Fried may get 115 years, but he won’t serve it. He’s just the puppet who is taking the fall for the millions he donated to the Democrat coffers. It’s just a show so the Democrats can say they are playing level. No progress today as I’m raking the yard, but I made a plan for study in Tennessee. The library there has a good research section, a relative statement because American libraries are overall piss-poor for deep learning. My study is the Courland pocket, the German divisions trapped in northwest Latvia, surrounded until the end of the war. The historical accounts are contradictory, with the Soviets claiming the Germans were bottled up and the area was just a large prison camp. Yeah, well why did they launch at least five major attacks, all of which failed?
There are quite a few new videos that include re-enactments, which I find curiously do not look at all like the actual photos and combat footage. There is something that instantly looks fake & phony about even the way the actors stand still. Maybe there is some guild taboo about acting like real German soldiers.
They’re all nuts.
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Like it or not, I’m investing again, and on too long a scale for me to every really get much out of it. But as long as the Reb & I are both remain unmarried, my common sense says to prepare for some kind of future together, since the public consensus is in our lifetimes, things are not going to get much better. Plus, I enjoy light investing and in the past I have learned never go go beyond the point where you’d worry. There’s not dollar limit, but there is a shortage of good things to invest in. Caltier does not reveal their sales in advance so I’m feeling over-balanced in that fund. But can you think of anything else, not real estate?
It is proof of concept, meaning I’ll likely proceed with this until I gain some confidence. I paid for top quality bits, yet they cut maybe half as fast as shown on the videos. The results are so nice, I’m already considering a professional router and table. I know those big shank bits must fit some kind of chuck at least twice the diameter of what I have now.
The French have told Gab they have to ban a French group from posting. Gab told the French to go pound sand. I told them to go do what they were best at and surrender to the Germans. I’m inside because it gets dark earlier. Howie points out the agave cactus is a palmetto, which I did not know is highly attractive to honey bees and I’m not a fan of honey. When I walked out in the partial shade of late afternoon, I saw swarms of bees feeding on the flower buds. I’ve not seen bees work in coordination before. They were methodical and very delicate workers—just when my camcorder batteries died. It must be cactus season, as the other cactus plant, some other species, has produced green “flower buds” and is also dying back. I scrolled through a huge cactus database and could not ID the plant.
Next, I watched a documentary on early rock and roll. I did not know Bill Haley and the Comets was a seven-piece orchestra including a saxophone and steel guitar. And a documentary on how inflation for the lower and middle classes has been 32% since 2019, an example of how to lie with statistics. Oh, the number is real, but what happened is inflation was 30.6% under Biden since 2020. They moved the date back to 2019 to include the Trump era’s 1.4%. The Bidenistas are claiming the reason for the inflation is the Republicans won’t approve them printing up another trillion-dollars in stimulus checks, of which 1.4 million were sent out to dead people last round.
ADDENDUM
A survey of what people over 40 regretted most not doing when younger came up with this list, which could double as an I-told-you-so for this blog. This was posted on Reddit, so it is hardly scientific, but these are the most-recurring answers.
1) Not letting go of useless relationshipsBut the uncomfortable theme that kept arising was people not prepared for modern medicine keeping them alive for another 20 years with chronic diseases that would have, in the past, killed them. I’m at odds with that one since I see people in that situation are also the ones who avoided developing skills for later. A lot of the replies were crap like “not investing in real estate” and “not telling people how I felt”, I had to sift those out as self-pity, not true remorse. Does this mean I have chronic conditions that I’ve led way too vibrant a life to even notice?
2) Not learning to keep in touch with old friends
3) Not maxing out their retirement funds
4) Not traveling and reading more
5) Not ditching toxic family ties
6) Not being sexually adventuresome
7) Not keeping a diary (!!!)
8) Not having a plan for after 30
I noted also the lack of items like not learning music or not having a productive hobby. They also have mythical ideas of what investing is all about. When they finally get around to it, they expect miracles and blame lack of return solely on not doing it earlier. I lived below subsistence level until age 27 before I could invest. If you ask me, these other people have real illusions of how it works and what is really involved. And the most frightening of those illusions is how they will not admit the importance of a solid infrastructure. It wasn’t the dollar amount that let me retire at age 41.
