infrastructure

Ho, Ho, No

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yes DC, there is a Santa Claus.

“With holidays coming up, you might be wondering if the gifts you plan to buy will arrive on time,” President Biden said from the White House yesterday. “Today we have some good news: We’re going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America.”

And ole Joe, one of Kris Kringle’s older elves is here to help.  The White House responded to the roughly 66 container ship backlog by finalizing an agreement for the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach to become a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation just like the hours that Santa’s helpers keep this time of the year.

The hope is that nighttime operations will help to break the logjam and get that temporary inflation, which isn’t so temporary, under control.

Want to know a Santa’s secret?  The port has been operating 24/7 for the last 21 days.  Want to know another?   Consumer prices climbed 5.4% from a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, way above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Higher energy, food, and shelter costs were prime drivers of price increases in September.   There isn’t too much energy coming into LA’s ports.  And, it accounts for zero shelter cost increases.

Ah, but it’s been said before, and savvy politicians will say it again.  And, again.   Never, ever let a good crisis go to waste.  Alas, the president is trying to use the predicament as a selling point for his policy plans that are undergoing congressional scrutiny.

“We need to take a longer view and invest in building greater resiliency to withstand the kinds of shocks we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out, the risk of a pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, weather disruptions,” he said.  That’s a mouthful of leftist cookies and milk if we’ve ever heard it.

What’s so weird about this is that Santa and his elves work in the harshest climate of all, the North Pole.  And, we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out that jolly ole Nick guy and his reindeer get to millions of homes, up and down chimneys, and deliver on promises all in one 24 hour window.  That’s a supply chain logistics model to emulate if ever there was one.  And, yet, it doesn’t work this year.  Hmm.

And, lost in all of this is that the ports are but one small piece of the puzzle.  Up and down the supply chain- wages, raw material shortages, manufacturing shortfalls, lack of truck drivers, lack of retail workers, etc all have a role.  Oh, and the government is stuffing money in the stockings hung on the mantle without care.

Rudolph’s red inflation nose is flashing so bright, that the Fed might need to deliver an interest rate lump of coal increase sooner than later.   That, of course, assumes coal is still an allowable fuel source should the Democrats pass the Reconciliation Bill, but we digress.

University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson noted on Twitter the “economy is in a very fragile and unprecedented place.”  “No one really knows what’s going to happen,” wrote Stevenson, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

Maybe Santa could trade in his old, old sleigh. We hear used vehicles are commanding top trade-in dollars these days.

The problem with that is he’d need to buy a pricey new one.

And, those come from China, through the LA port, and are back-ordered until mid-2022 we heard.

Storm Clouds

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday President Joe Biden warned Americans that time had run out to keep global warming from causing catastrophic weather events in the United States.

“Climate change is real. We’re living through it now. We don’t have any more time,” Biden said.

Ida was the perfect storm for Biden and the Democrats.  It was terrible ripping through Louisiana, but the flooding it caused in the northeast gave Biden the platform to stump not once, but twice, for his left wing’s climate change initiatives. Hammer a red state, bad.  Hammer a blue state or two, hit the campaign trail.

And, how timely, they have hundreds of billions of the 1 trill infrastructure and 3.5 trill budget resolution earmarked for climate change at the ready for passage.

“Every part of the country is getting hit by extreme weather,” Biden said. “We’re now living in real-time what the country is going to look like.”  How many years have forest fires scorched the west in the dry and lightening filled summer? Four?  Or, forever?  Can you help us with how many hurricanes have hit the coast of Louisiana in the last, say, 10,000 years?  And, who knew that heavy rains could cause flooding over the banks of rivers, even in New York and New Jersey?

Biden said powerful hurricanes like Ida and wildfires in the West only proved that climate change was real.  Not really.  It only proved that it’s late summer again.

The next thing you know, some expert will tell us that melting snow from the nation’s heartland will eventually find its way next spring to the Mississippi River and threaten to flood states west and east of it from Iowa clear down to Louisiana yet again.  This happens every spring, doesn’t it?  There is a reason why the richest soil for farmers in America lies in the flooded lands of the mighty Mississippi.

“I think we’re at one of those inflection points where we either act or we’re going to be, we’re going to be in real, real trouble.”  Sometimes Biden is hard to understand with his occasional misspeak, flub, mispronunciation, and/or truncation.   Not this time.  Give me my spending bill or you and your loved ones are going to perish in all of this peril, he says.

Our kids are going to be in real trouble,” Biden said.  We’ll give him this one.  Biden knows a lot about troubled kids.

And he knows a tornado when he sees one.  Not really.  “Looks like a tornado, they don’t call them that anymore,” he said.  “They are wreaking havoc in our nation’s heartland.  Nevada, Iowa, our wetlands, etc,” he stammered.  “We’re in this together.”

US geography may not be a long suit of Joe’s.

Meanwhile back in Afghanistan, it’s not so sunny either.

But if you change the narrative, you can hide behind the clouds.

 

 

Here to Help

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In June of 1971, shortly after a publication of a special message to the Congress on drug abuse, prevention, and control, the American media popularized the term “The War on Drugs.”  Richard Milhouse Nixon declared the problem, as he put it, “public enemy number one.”

By 1973 our government was in such agreement with Nixon on the dire situation of the matter it created the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) to fight this war on any and all fronts.

A decade later cocaine had become so prevalent stateside that Nancy Reagan took the lead of the “Just Say No” initiative.

For crooks in the drug trade during the Reagan years and beyond, prison penalties skyrocketed.  Incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses increased from 50k to over 400k from 1980 to 1987.

A half of a century ago Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon declared war on drugs.  And drugs are as easy to get a hold of today and in many more dangerous and advanced synthetic forms than ever before.  And, the DEA manpower and budget are bigger than ever.

Now we want an early release for nonviolent offenders.

Has our government failed us?  When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is yes.

Twenty years ago this 9/11 America was attacked by Al-Qaeda, a broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the 1980s.

Twenty years ago this October America invaded Afghanistan.  Call it the War on Terror if you wish.

Meanwhile, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress and signed on November 19, 2001, established Transportation Security Administration(TSA).

We spent the first ten years in Afghanistan looking under rocks for a devil named Osama Bin Laden.  Supposedly.  We spent the last ten nation-building and getting our soldier’s lives and limbs blown away by roadside bombs knows as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

And, now we’ve come home.  Enough of this never-ending war Joe Biden said.  And, America agrees.

We got “90 percent” of the Americans out that wanted out, he said.   We also left untold numbers of Afghan friendlies to us (interpreters, snitches, and the like.  We left behind helicopters, planes, tanks, humvees, weapons, and ammo that are now in the hand of the very same people we attempted to beat back out of the bushes for two decades.  America disagrees with how we exited, not why.

The Taliban, and its numerous factions of terrorist groups, are in exactly the same spot where we found them.

Two decades and two trillion dollars later we’re in the same spot as well except we got one guy who was so good at hide and seek it took ten years to find him. When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is still yes.

How’s the TSA doing you ask?  Its budget is over six times larger than when it was first instituted.  Self-imposed tests by the TSA show a greater than 90% failure rate at stopping dangerous weapons from getting past them.   And, don’t forget to take your shoes off when going through.

At least we’re soon to put some money that we don’t have to good use here at home.  We can fix the nation’s decaying infrastructure for a measly one trillion dollars we are told and sold.

Surely you’ll only see orange cones littering your favorite routes for a short period of time.

The War on Roads and Bridges easily will be completed in a decade or two.

You can see the roadside sign in your head right now, “Your Tax Dollars at Work!”

Can’t you?

 

 

Hey Big Spender!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Dr. Fauci and the CDC have spent a year hard at work.  And, thanks to their great efforts now you can go back to work and pay some taxes.

Actually, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson have spent a year hard at work, not your government, but we digress already.

But, now your government is hard at work attempting to spend more money that we don’t collect in taxes.  Actually, they have always been hard at work spending money that we don’t have.  US debt in 1990 was 3 trillion bucks.  By 2000 it was $6 trillion.  In 2010 it reached $12 trillion.  In 2020 it raced to $27 trillion.  And, by year’s end 2021 we’ll cross $29 trillion at a minimum.

Do you see a pattern of behavior from the math above?  Of course, you do.   But, notice that doubling the debt every decade is out of style.  If it were still in style the figure for 2020 would be $24 trillion.  But add another $5 trillion to that as well.

But wait, there’s more.

It’s the golden rule.  He who has the gold makes the rules.  Except in the American government, it’s the power rule.  He who has the power makes the rules.  And, they propose the budget.  Or, we should say they write the spending bills?

President Biden, aka The Big Spender, has proposed a $2.7 trillion infrastructure spend.  And, almost $700 billion of it has to do with infrastructure as you know it.  The rest is pork.  Green New Deal like pork.  Far-left pork.  You have to feed the hungry minds that got you there.

And, the Republicans are outraged.  “Way too much,” they say.  And, after a $700 billion counter from them, Biden countered at $1.7 trillion.  How so very nice of both of them to offer to spend less of what we don’t have.  And, now?  And, now both sides seem to be willing to dance at about $1 trillion.  How so very nice of them, we repeat.

The Republicans refuse to budge on the 2017 individual and corporate tax cuts as a bargaining chip to agree to $1 trillion.  Swell.  We’re ok to spend more, we’re just not ok to approve paying for it.  It’s not hard to understand why they are the minority party.  Mitch McConnell couldn’t sell bourbon to his Kentucky constituents.

Seems like Biden, aka The Great Compromiser, is willing to drop a few dimes off of the human infrastructure part(s) of the infrastructure deal.  What’s human infrastructure, you ask?  Really, it’s just a fancy way of saying pork, but not saying pork.

Notice, both sides of the aisle are ready to spend.  It’s only a matter of how much and when.

But, wait, there’s even more.

This AM The NY Times breaks a story, surely leaked by the Biden team, that his 2022 budget calls for $6 trillion in spending.  The 2021 spending side of the budget (a misnomer if we ever heard one) sits at a fat $4.8 trillion.

So, what do you say we ask Congress for a teeny itty bitty 25% increase in government spending?  Most year-over-year asks come in along the lines of the cost of living increases (roughly 2-4%).  Can’t you hear them?  “This isn’t the time to cut back, we’re coming out of a pandemic.  People are hurting.”  When is a good time?  We wonder?

The Democrats are always a step ahead.  While you’re debating the infrastructure, we’ll propose breaking the bank with next year’s spend.  By the time Congress gets to the budget,  the White House will propose, oh, say, that DC becomes a state?

It’s the largest proposed increase since WWII.

And, we’re not even at war.

At least, we’re not at war with another country, just our own.

 

 

Robin Hood Rides Again

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Politicians make strange bedfellows.  What’s old is new.

Do you know what you get when you cross-breed two old-school famous sayings?  You get Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez(AOC).

Old Bernie turns 80 this coming September.  He’s been doing all of the Vermont people’s business since 1991 in one or the other Halls of Congress.  That’s a smooth 30 years.

NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 19: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorses Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at a campaign rally.

Young AOC turns 32 this coming October.    She’s been doing some of the New York people’s business since 2019 in the House of Representatives.  That’s two years and counting.

President Joe Biden revealed his $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan late last week shortly after the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill two weeks prior.  Never mind that the relief bill only had 9% of the money earmarked for direct money to the citizens nor that that infrastructure plan (dubbed the American Jobs Plan) has only about 25% for traditional (roads, bridges, airports) infrastructure repair or improvements.

A BBR staffer bumped into a U.S. Rep Saturday who will remain nameless.  That Congressperson summed the giveaways up perfectly,  “you can sell anything you want when you use the words ‘Covid relief.’  And who can possibly be against ‘jobs’?”  Indeed.  Sounds like a chicken in every pot and pork for all.

But wait, there’s more!  Or at least AOC and Bernie wish it to be so.

AOC applauded Biden’s “vision” on the infrastructure plan but exclaimed that it is not sufficient and “needs to be way bigger.”  She went on, “we’re the richest country in the world, it should be $10 trillion.”

Senator Sanders said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was working to include “human infrastructure” into President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package.  “One of the areas that I am working on right now is the need to expand Medicare in order to provide dental care and hearing aids and eyeglasses for the elderly. Is that infrastructure? I think it is. Look, Jake, the truth is, in so many ways, we are behind many other countries throughout the world in providing for working families and the elderly and the children. And I think now is the time to begin addressing our physical infrastructure and our human infrastructure.”

Who knew infrastructure had so many definitions?  And, if you can’t hear people blowing horns at you nor see the red light in front of you how can you take advantage of all that new infrastructure?  We digress.

Is it any wonder that AOC backed Sanders’s latest failed bid to reach the Democratic nomination for President?

AOC called us rich and therefore we snap our fingers and can afford it. Oh, to be young and naive all over again.

Sanders makes it overtly simple.  He is a Socialist.

Biden said no one making under $400k will have to pay for any of it.  Well, the corporate tax of currently 21% recommended returning to the previous 28% might cost the consumer a titch we suppose.

“No president has ever raised business taxes to recover from an economic crisis,” Rep. Kevin Brady, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said. “This couldn’t come at a worse time.”  Details, details.

In 13th Century England, Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.  Supposedly.

Robinhood.com, the investor website, got in trouble playing games with GameStop stock a few weeks back.

And now this young (AOC) and old(Sanders) Robin Hood duo are playing a different game that needs to stop.

Margaret Thatcher knew as much many, many moons ago.  She said, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”