Thursday 13 February 2020

What About the 40-Percent?

A poll was done and it came out that sixty-percent of Americans think they are better off now, than a year ago.  So, the question arises.....what about the other 40-percent.

I sat and pondered over this.  What about the other 40-percent or 120-million?

Well....first, if you live in L A, SF, Seattle, or Portland....you'd naturally have conflicting issues with homeless folks, crime, and druggies.....so you would admit things were not better off now.

Second, if you live in NY City, and you were anticipating that Amazon would be advertising all those jobs.....you were screwed royally and things aren't better.

Third, if you work for CNN or MSNBC....it's pretty good odds that you haven't seen a pay-raise, or a promotion, and probably won't see anything marvelous for the next five years.

Fourth, if you were Hillary Clinton.....you still bare a grudge and certainly nothing has improved since 2016.

Fifth, if you were part of the insider crew who were supposed to take the President down by now.....well....you failed....miserably, and 2020 doesn't look that good for you.

Sixth, if you were some stupid teenage idiot back in 2002, and borrowed in the range of $80,000 for your stupid college degree, yeah....you are probably still in debt, and still looking at another three years before it's all paid off.

Seventh, if you lowered yourself into a debt pit over five credit cards and achieved almost $60,000 in debt.....yeah, you are still in serious debt and nothing much has improved over the past decade, and probably won't improve much in the next decade.

Eighth, if you sunk $40,000 into a pontoon boat four years ago, and find it's not used more than four Saturdays per year, and the value has dropped to around $20,000....yep, your life hasn't improved much either.

Ninth, if your wife threw $7,000 in a boob-job last year, and ran off with the Maytag repair guy last week, the odds are that your life hasn't improved much.

Tenth and final.....you do roughly $10,000 worth of meth per year and have been doing that much for six years, it's a pretty sure bet that your life hasn't improved much, and it's a pretty sure bet you will be dead within the next decade.

Nancy's Chat

It's not front-page news and barely gets onto page four.....but on Tuesday of this week....House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a meeting with a top Obama economics adviser.

The topic of discussion?  Pelosi wants details on how to explain to Democrats (and likely Republicans as well)....on why the economy REALLY ISN'T as strong as Trump says, and then how to message or brand this to voters.

So you sit there and ponder upon this.

It would be like going up to some farmer who has personally counted 200 head of cattle on his farm yesterday, and then you trying convince him today that there are only 120 head of cattle.  Then the farmer might respond that the only way that he's lost 80 head...is that someone cut a hole in the fence, and the cattle escaped off into the night.

I suspect that the economist will sit there and marvel Pelosi with various facts and numbers....that in various California regions....the economy has swiveled up and done poorly.  Then he'll mention NY City's loss of Amazon.  But none of this will really provoke a message that you'd want to give Democratic voters.

So my advice to Nancy:  Go forth and suggest the economy is marginal, and then offer up tax breaks for the regular-working-class people.  Offer tax breaks to companies who hire new positioned people.  Bring in deregulation.  Stomp down on foreign countries that 'dump' products on US markets. 

Yes, out-Trump Trump.  That's the ticket.

The odds of this reality occurring?  Zero.  But it'd interesting to hear the guy explain to Nancy that there's stuff going on that hasn't been seen since the 1950s. 

Nancy could do advertisements.....some loser kid sitting in a basement....a 4-year degree in his pocket in French literature, and nowhere to market the degree.  Some loser on a San Francisco street....living in a tent....talking about his paranoid schizophrenia and inability to work  Some loser in a Detroit suburb talking over his customer base dissolving, and business in serious trouble....but avoiding the discussion that he mostly sells crack or marijuana. 

No one says much what occurred after the meeting, but I would guess that Nancy opened up a bottle of gin, and had several cocktails by 2 PM.  It's going to be a long, long campaign for 2020.