There are a couple of good college football games on today, so I have to write fast.
Here are a few other things I don’t care about.
1. Facebook renaming itself Meta. I couldn’t possibly care less. I tried to, but, nope, I couldn’t do it.
I don’t even want to know why Zuck picked the word “meta” or what it means. Just don’t care.
“If I change the name, maybe everybody will forget all the bad stuff those FB folks did?”
The US government, the Biden admin, has already passed one huge Pandemic-related bill earlier this year and is in the death throes of passing two more:
1. The American Recovery Plan Act was passed by the Dems to the tune of $1,900,000,000,000.
2. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is waiting passage to the tune of $1,200,000,000,000.
3. The Build Back Better Bill (The Bernie Sanders, “Damn Right I’m A Socialist” Bill) is awaiting passage to the tune of $3,500,000,000,000, but has been sent to the gym and whittled down to $1,900,000,000,000.
This is a “nominal” total of $5,000,000,000,000 ($1.9T + $1.2T + $1.9T = $5,000,000,000,000), but it will actually be far more — at least 2X — than that nominal amount because of the bogus way Congress prices such bills.
See:
for an explanation of how Congressional arithmetic really works. Continue reading
We are inundated with media, pundits, and bloggers telling America what its opinion should be.
We are similarly flooded with pollsters — who seem to get Presidential elections and politics in general abysmally wrong — telling us what we think.
There are three long term, reliable measures of consumer/business confidence upon which I have historically relied to provide an accurate picture of the state of affairs in the country:
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
I particularly like to be able to see the trend as I am a firm believer that the trend is your friend. It shows you things that a discrete number cannot.
When one reads anything these days one is confronted by headline grabbing numbers as to the “cost” of various pieces of legislation — right now this falls under the headings of “infrastructure” and “social infrastructure.”
There are two bills at play now in the US Congress.
1. Bill No 1 — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (10 Aug 2021), priced at $1,200,000,000,000.
2. Bill No 2 — the “social infrastructure” bill, known as the Build Back Better Bill informally, is intended to be passed by reconciliation, a legislative trick that requires a simple majority in both the House and Senate. This bill is priced at $3,500,000,000,000.
These two bills are in addition to the American Recovery Plan Act already enacted by POTUS Biden and the US Congress (the Dems) for $1,900,000,000,000.
We are talking nominal spending of more than $6,600,000,000,000 — which I believe understates the total expenditures by more than $3-4,000,000,000,000 because of Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic.
That is a total of approximately $10,000,000,000,000 which will ultimately add about $7,000,000,000,000 to the National Debt.
Hello, America! Are y’all paying attention to this?
“Who are you going to believe? Me, your Truthful Aunt Nancy, or that rusty bag of bolts, Big Red Car? I’m going to squeeze his headlights but good. Look into my eyes.”
I served in the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea when Colin Powell was a battalion commander and the division was commanded by Henry “Gunfighter” Emerson. It was good, hard duty, a long way from home, and I enjoyed it.
“I entered ROTC in the fall of 1954. Here I am in my first uniform. I had found something that I loved and that I did well.”
My combat engineer company crossed his battalion across the Imjin River several times during maneuvers when we war gamed attacking north into North Korea. He would speak to the engineer bridge officer when his men crossed. I was the bridge officer several times. Continue reading
We are by our nature social creatures and the evil Chinese Pandemic has cut us off from our natural outlets for social contact and discourse. I feel it like an oppressive force as if cut off from the sun for two years.
Skype, Zoom, MS Teams tried their best to bring us together, but they are two dimensional and do not fulfill that social need.
We can get our groceries delivered — and, boy oh boy, did I — but it foils our need to see, talk to, and be in the company of other people — not intimate friends, but the masses of humanity that are the stage set for our lives.
I miss the coffee shop humanity, the partisan crowds at sporting events, the hungry people at the grocery store, and the reverent churchgoers.
Today I announce with defiance and determination: I have thrown off the yoke and I am back in play at the vanguard of a revolt.
Everywhere I look everybody is pissed off.
Likely, you are not old enough to have been an adult during the Carter administration when we had a similar malaise about energy and American impotence. Allow me to draw the parallels for y’all.
Violent extremists, domestic terrorists holding inflammatory signs at a School Board meeting. Can’t you just feel the criminal behavior? Don’t they look like desperate criminals? Let’s call the FBI on these unmasked desperadoes.
Today, your Big Red Car brings you the talented and mysterious artiste Hunter Biden who has agreed to sit down with us in his studio, take a break from his heavy painting and exhibition schedule, and chat about things.
The artiste Hunter Biden with some of his inspiring work in his studio which used to be his living room.
Hunter: Look, Big Red Car, a couple of ground rules first.
BRC: Sure, Hunter, what’s on your mind?
HB: No Ukraine, Buresma, drugs, hookers, private equity, no laptop baloney — deal? Art, only art, I’m a serious artiste. Notice I put an “e” on it. So, we good?
BRC: Sounds fair. Let’s dive into it. How long have you been a serious artist?
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