Explaining Consumer Price Index To A Redneck

 The CPI is a pretty standard 'tool' for economists.  You basically take x-number of goods bought monthly, and keep visiting (repeating) to see if the price has gone up or down.  

Can you rig CPI?  You could but then you'd be defeating the usefulness of the tool.

So to explain this to a redneck....you have a 12 cases of assorted beer that you buy (12 brands).  

You start out at store X and buy one case of Miller Lite for $26.99.  You repeat this process for the remaining 11 cases.  Then you add the numbers up, and you have x-amount for May 2024.

If you were rigging this?  You'd have a list of superior discount shops and buy the beer only while on sale.  In this case, you might find the Miller Lite case....discounted at one particular shop for $24.99.  

You'd then repeat the discount game....to ensure the CPI looks great but at a majority of shops....it's likely to be $28.99.  You skipped them because your inflation numbers would be crap, if you did this right.

Screwed up?  No....it's just the way that you fake people out.  

This Brewing 'Hurricane' Effect On Condo Sales In Florida

 If you pull up real estate sites and search over Florida for condos for sale....it's a huge number listed (way more than normal).  Why?  Well....it leads to odd things:

1.  That condo collapse from last year triggered the state gov't to mandate condo associations actually do maintenance and have a pile of money to cover required 'fixes'.  That meant your association fee, which might have been $400 to $1000 a month....probably doubled.  It also meant that if they found massive problems....they came to you for a one-time pay-up situation...maybe $10,000.....maybe even $40,000.  

2.  Then the insurance industry revised their quotes....in most cases....going up by one-third...but some even doubled their yearly rate.

So 'Hank' looked at his personal mess to clean up and realized.....he doesn't have the savings or yearly retirement income to cover this mess.  Logically, he's got the property up for sale., 

Who would buy into a mess like this?  No one.

'Hank' will hit some point by December....realizing that his savings is being drained and association fee is bankrupting him....so he will declare bankruptcy and hand the keys to the association.  

What can the condo association do with the empty condo?  Nothing.

So from the 240 units of a average condo building...by summer of 2025, the association will probably have 30 to 60 units empty....unable to market them, and now approaching the remaining 180-odd players in the building that they need to pay a higher fee.  How high?  Well...they already saw a 50-to-100 percent rise in 2024.  I would imagine by mid-2025, it'll go to a second 50-to-100 percent rise....meaning a new crew of folks in desperation and talking to a lawyer over bankruptcy by spring of 2026.

The condo by summer of 2026?  Of the 240 units....more than half of the units will be empty, and the remaining folks are now in desperate times because their savings is being wiped out.   Yep, they will be discussing bankruptcy and handing the keys to the condo to the association.  Wave after wave....hitting the market.

Just a ball-park guess, but I would imagine over 300 condo buildings across the state by spring 2027....empty and fenced up.  State trying to size up the property and sell the units for $10,000 (over their current value of $250,000)?  It wouldn't shock me, but what idiot would go and buy some condo situation like this?

It's an amazing economic story to ponder.  All of these had value.....ownership was simplified....association operations functioned as designed.  Then one day....it all failed.

My question?  Lets say that 10,000 owners are in this situation and lose their property.....getting into serious financial woes.  Where do they move and rebuild their lives?  Anywhere, but Florida.  

Five Things I'd Do About Student Demonstrations

 1.  I'd add a line in the student rules......where if you demonstrated on property grounds....we'd call the city police and as you are detained.....you are automatically suspended from the school for one year, with your accomplishments so far in suspended status until the full year is over (meaning even if you transfer to another college....your classes aren't countable in that period).

2.  Non-member of the campus on the grounds?  Prosecute them to the fullest degree of the law.

3.  Zero camping allowed, and automatic confiscation of the tent/camping gear.  

4.  Employees of the school participating?  Tell them on university grounds, it's cause for dismissal.

5.  Creating a disturbance during a class day?  Add a $300 fee (per day).   

Guatemala Story

 I was reading over a stoy of the Attorney General of Guatemala....who is in some type of investigation over child-trafficking of kids there.....into the US.  Nothing is really clear.

But in the middle of the story....they got onto this odd subject.  The US gov't....never saying which department did this....shuffled around $125,000 into Guatemala to pay for the services of Shaman/Healers.

Shaman/Healers?  

In certain remote areas of Honduras, Guatemala and so on....it comes out of the past with the Mayan, Aztec and Inca folks.

They typically would have a ceremony....have some smoke in the air....drink some herbal tea (possibly laced with some stuff to make you dopey), and by the end of the 'show'.....you felt 'right'.

So the question is....how did the tax money ($125k) find it's way into this mess, who approved this idea, and where exactly does it fit into child-trafficking?

You can read the story here.

On my weird index....yeah, it's a solid ten.

Eight Things

 1.  On economic plus-ups to President Biden....he is totally disconnected to plain working-class Americans.  It's hard to imagine this is an election year, and things are so screwed-up....that he can't sell his brand or message.

2  You probably didn't hear, but DoJ is talking to the court over the hammer-dude who went at Paul Pelosi (Nancy's husband), and wanting him to serve 40 years.  

3.  McDonalds says it's going to market a $5-meal.  I would imagine it'll be the 99-cent hamburger with 2 patties, small fries, and small drink.  Over past three years....if I've been at a McDonalds....haven't been able to for less than $12.

4.  If I were a university with 'campers' (people with tents).....I'd respond....sure, you can camp, for a daily fee of $39 (per person). If you can't pay.....I'd ask the police to pick each person up....jail them until they pay the $39.

5.   Something I expect in 2025.....some college 'group' comes up....admitting they read Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' and readily support his Nazi strategy.  

6.  It just kinda hit this past week....Joe Biden himself.....is doing everything possible to screw up the election and the spiral on negativity is currently a big deal.  The economy?  If  he'd brought some special team in early 2023 and said...get this all fixed up, then he'd be out to win the election.  

7.  If someone utters that he's an expert....he's got about 90 seconds to prove his point, or be condemned as an idiot.  Funny how this has developed.

8.  Germany's idea from 20 years ago to dump the draft?  Basically today....deemed almost a failure, and there's talk that the volunteer deal is about to be dumped.

Crazy Talk

 I saw this graphic chart this AM....crazy-people population in state psychiatric hospitals in the US....1950 to 2010.

So my question is this....if the incoming crowd were released....where did they 'really' go?  Out in public, or in prisons?

Did lessening the resident situation really fix anything over a 60-year period?

And the one odd factor....up until 1960, we were still on a upward trend.  Where would the 'mark' be today....if the clinics been kept open?

Heat Story

 Someone brought this up today....actually published around mid-October of 2023.

I sat and pondered over it.  

To be honest, if you had ventured from the Carolinas back in 1825....out to Illinois/Indiana....as a settler, after a single year of living in mid-America, you probably would have said things are way too hot, and way too cold....to live there.

Then as you moved to Colorado in the 1870....you probably said the same thing.

Upon moving to Arizona (Tombstone) in 1900....you would have said the same thing.

If any of this warning BS were true....you'd see scientists at the various universities in mid-America....packing up and trying to get to Oregon or Maine....to survive.  

Yet, you see no one really acting worried.