Thursday 11 March 2021

My Solution to Fix America: President Doctor Phil

 For a number of years, I've gone though the pondering of America being 'broke'.  I had about 700 different news groups tell me this.  I've had a minimum of a thousand politicians discuss this.  And nothing seems to work.

So....I want to bring in President Doctor Phil.  Yes, elect the guy in....give him a 12-hour a day job....doing intervention with Republicans and Democrats....sending them off to 'retreat-camps' in mid-Mississippi, with sand-bag filling and hay-hauling.  

President Doctor Phil could handle Pelosi, McConnell, AOC, Hillary Clinton, Colin Kaepernick, the BLM crowd, radical Muslims, woke idiots, intellectuals, and even the fake Hollywood people. 

Woes with North Korea's Kim?  Have President Doctor Phil do a session with him and offer up some manly advice on 'we all need a little growing up'.  

Bashing the Queen by Harry or Meghan?  Drag both into President Doctor Phil's office and give them real physical work to do for six weeks....to get the fake rage out.

Trouble with the Twitter or Facebook bosses? Drag them into a studio, and give President Doctor Phil four hours to interrogate them.  

Yes, we've finally reached the stage where intervention is required, and there's only one way to handle this.  

There's Spanish, And There's Some Other Spanish

 First, let me acknowledge that my level of Spanish is limited to about twelve terms (one of them is 'dónde está el baño', which basically means I kinda need to know where your bathroom is located....this is a handy term to remember).  Also...it's helpful to remember the phrase 'urgentemente', which means 'fast' or 'urgent'.  

This week....the Biden White House National Security Council adviser....Roberta Jacobson....stood up and said that the US border was OPEN, in English.

After she finished that comment....she then suddenly flipped over and said the phase in Spanish....'the border is NOT closed'.  If you think about it....the first comment doesn't translate to the second comment, but it's supposed to mean the same thing.

Then, this funny thing happened.

Someone walks up to Jacobson at the podium, and slips her a piece of paper....then she utters: “la frontera esta cerrada” (the border IS closed) in Spanish.

The confusion factor?  Well....it went from a marginal '4' to a '9' real quick.

So we need to say this up front, and it's never been openly discussed by the US news media.

If you took a Mexican, a El Salvadoran, a Peruvian, a Guatemalan, and a Honduran in a room....to have a focus group.....you'd discover that they marginally understand each other's Spanish enough to get by (it'd be like 3rd grade kids from Australia, Canada, England, the US south, the US NY City crowd, and Jamaican folks) with different accents trying to communicate.

On Jacobson's grasp and understanding of Spanish?  It's anyone's guess.  She might be at the 3rd-grade level, or the 10th-grade level.  Is it Mexican-Spanish, or Puerto Rican-Spanish?  Unknown.  I kinda doubt that she was hired on her Spanish language abilities.  

If you brought this up with President Biden, he'd open his commentary up on on 1980s Mexican soap operas he'd watched....like 'Cristal' or 'La usurpadora', or that Spanish women always seemed overly dramatic in kicking the ass of their men-folks.

If you just stand back and admire this landscape....you need around a dozen special people hired by President Biden, who have one single unique language ability....like El Salvadorian-Spanish, Puerto Rican-Spanish, Texas-Spanish, Mexican-Spanish, or even Uruguayan-Spanish.  

The fact that maybe ten-percent of the border crossing folks are from way beyond Latin America?  Oh.....well....lets not bring up that forty-odd Chinese folks cross the border weekly, or that a dozen Iranians are usually picked up over an average month.  

How I Think the Next Six Months of the Biden-Border Episode Unfolds

 I see three certain scenarios coming out of this mess:

1.  A couple of states along the border region (Texas in particular)....will probably act to offer incentives (bus-tickets for example), for a one-way trip to California or Maryland.  It'll be very sly minor program at first....just a thousand free tickets.  Folks will step in and contribute to the fund, and by late-summer....at least 10,000 free bus rides will have occurred.

All of this will upset the kind folks at the destination end, and them expressing that this ought to be illegal.

2.  A housing shortage of an unusual type will start up....surrounding the new migrants into the US.  News journalists will be begged by city officials to hype the problem, and oddly enough....they refuse to touch the sensitive issue.

At some point, late-summer....the Biden administration will talk of contracting out FEMA-like trailers (maybe 10k of them) to fill this housing crisis.

In major cities like St Louis, Orlando, Austin, etc....migrant trailer-parks will set to be seen....propped up by local city governments and no clear long-term plan.  

3.  Finally, BLM folks will start to talk about this problem where the new migrants (with visa papers provided)....are now taking what was generally black-'owned' jobs.  

Biden will have to hire someone to explain this in some detail....telling people not to worry....that more jobs are coming, and everyone will be happily employed shortly....at a minimum wage level.   This won't sell well....going into 2022.  

'Normal'

 At some point....the company Unilever decided that they'd use the word 'normal' in describing their hair/soap products.  So for years (maybe even decades)....'normal' would appear in various descriptions. 

It's been decided in recent weeks....that the term 'normal' can't be used anymore....in order that they project being more 'inclusive' (meaning, just about everything.....normal, not-normal, radical, not-radical, etc).  

I sat and pondered over this.  'Normal' to me....was just a description word to explain what ought to occur in 75-percent of cases.  

Cows act in a 'normal' way....where you can predict via ten situations what a cow will do or behave as....in most cases.  

You can buy a particular car, and predict that in a normal five-year period, this is the normal set of issues/problems you should face.

You can walk into a Wal-Mart, and generally predict where products will be in a 'normal' way....based on a plan exercised by the management.

You can step into a beauty shop and ask for a 'normal' cut, and have a pretty good idea of what will happen.

So messing around with 'normal'....just doesn't seem to make sense.  This 'inclusive' idea?  Pretty odd path to change, if you ask me.  

Finance Story

 In recent days, a fair amount of chatter has come up over Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and their finances.  Some things make sense....some things don't make sense.

So I put on my financial analysis hat.

First, the combined wealth of the two (figured last year) is around 50-million dollars (Meghan is figured to be worth around 10-million by herself).  The Prince doesn't get anymore money from the 'family' so his bundle of 40-odd million is it. 

Second, the contract with Netflix?  Well...the two are paid around $25-million (multiple years) to interview 'interesting' people.  Will anyone watch this?  I have my doubts....neither are known with interview talents.

Third, if you took the 50-odd million and did decent investing, I would suggest that they could pull in around 4-million minimum a year.  On an exceptional year, maybe up to around 7-million.  

Fouth, tax woes?  Well, for a while, Harry was under a tax-free status.  But that kinda ended....so he's paying both US federal and California state tax.  So if they was making 4-million yearly....they marginally take home 2-million (a big chunk is California state tax).

Fifth, the $14-million new house?  Well....there's property tax issues here, and you can figure yearly....it's around $350k yearly.   

Sixth, the Netflix deal key to survival?  More or less.  As you might imagine, there aren't many TV show offers, or movie deals for Meghan.  Voice-overs?  That's about the only path left now.  

Seventh, figuring monthly expenses?  You really don't know.  There might be five or six house staff members....maybe a landscaping company to keep the property up.  I might take a wild guess and say monthly expenditures are near $400k, and they need $4.8-million a year.

So I come to what several financial folks have eyeballed....there was minimum to zero analysis done by the two.  California, because of the property tax situation and income tax (among the highest in the US)....is a poor choice for living.  I would imagine they selected it because that's where the 'upper-class' live and thrive (at least before the 2020 era).  

If you were looking for a couple in potential financial woes in ten years....I'd rate these two at the very top.  

Getting more of these 7-million dollar Oprah interview deals?  Don't count on it.  They burned that royal bridge, and whatever path they have ahead....it's purely California and the fake reality TV show business.  

What is funny here....if you took regular people and offered up a $50-million fund, with four-million a year coming out of it....we'd all move to Florida (no state tax), and find a hundred ways to live within our means, and have a few guilty pleasures.  Most of us wouldn't be forced into work.  We'd golf (kinda like Trump).  We'd have lobster every Saturday night.  We'd live....within a certain means.  

At some point in ten years....I expect Burger King to hire up Harry to do an advertisement or two....making this even more silly.