Whenever we are discussing the intentionally managed decline of the western countries, it is important to remember the closely connected relationship between multinational corporations and the political leaders of those nations. Specifically, their public-private connections as they run through the World Economic Forum assembly.
An intentionally managed decline of western economic activity should have a direct impact on the private corporations within those economies. If the politicians are collectively going to stop energy development, raise energy prices (inflation), then use monetary policy to shrink the economy down to the level of energy available, we would normally think corporations were going to make less money.
That preceding paragraph is not controversial. It simply explains exactly what is happening; that is the situation. However, for some weird reason the system that evaluates corporate wealth is not responding negatively to the reality of the situation.
Traditionally, we would think destroying the economy would be against the interests of the multinational corporations who benefit from economic expansion. However, in the era of subsidized and controlled economic management, I’m not so sure the corporations are stakeholders in economic growth. Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.
BERLIN, Aug 3 (Reuters) – BMW (BMWG.DE) lowered its output forecast and warned of a highly volatile second half on Wednesday, pinpointing supplies of energy in Europe and chips worldwide as the two crucial factors to the carmaker hitting full-year earnings targets.
New incoming orders were beginning to fall but order books remained filled for the next few months, chief executive Oliver Zipse said. (read more)
All of the basic indicators point in one direction.
Energy prices are squeezing consumers and paychecks. Energy driven inflation is high. Rising housing costs, food costs, gasoline costs and energy costs have hit the consumer hard. Credit card balances have jumped. Consumer sales on non-essential items have dropped. Factory activity around the world (Asia and Eurozone) is slowing or has stopped. Durable goods inventories have climbed everywhere, without customers to purchase them. All of these facets are happening exactly as we would expect.
However, the value of the companies negatively impacted by everything above, is not dropping at the same rate of the financial impact each company is incurring. It’s as if the entire financial system is pretending that things are not as bad as they are. This announcement from BMW is a good example of that.
Consider another example. According to the employment data, and even accepting the data is skewed, somewhere around 3.9 million jobs restarted or were created in the first six months of this year. Yet, despite that job growth the GDP declined -1.6% in the first quarter and -0.9% in the second.
How does an economy add almost 4 million jobs while simultaneously shrinking?
Either people are (1) less productive, or (2) working less hours, or (3) holding multiple jobs…. or a combination of the three.
Trying to filter through the economic noise to see beyond the horizon is becoming more difficult.
So, let’s bring this conversation down to Main Street. What do you see around you? What’s going on economically in your community?
Do you see lots of people in stores and shopping malls?
Do you see a lot of new purchases being made?
How are your family, friends and the people in your community being affected by this economy?
Anonymous Conservative has some interesting theories about this. You could check it out at his blog.
Skip the promo.
Cite the theories.
Share the link.
Rude, but since your thumbs are apparently broken, here you go
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/#comments
Excellent site!
People who are direct and succinct in stating truth are not rude.
They are direct and succinct in stating truth.
Grow a set.
12.) MANNERS MATTER – Simple kindnesses and courtesy should always be present in tone and content. When writing, ask yourself before you hit send: does this add value?
13.) NO PERSONAL ATTACKS – Ever. The fastest way to lose commenting privileges is to ridicule, bully or personally attack another person’s opinion or comment. Unfortunately people, often good people, let their passion interfere with good manners and personal judgement. If you cannot be polite or respectful, pause – and – do not comment.
Neither BKR nor I was rude. Direct yruth is truth. You just can’t handle direct truth. That is your problem. Don’t make it ours.
Telling me to grow a set hardly falls within the bounds of manners, MaineCoon. You went out of your way on that one.
“Skip the promo.
Cite the theories.
Share the link.”
What part of the original comment were you having an issue with?
Just not ‘politically correct” enough for you?
I stand by my comment. Over and out.
Less rude than blunt in my (admittedly unsolicited) opinion.
Steering traffic from one site towards another could be construed as ….less than optimal. Hits/advertising/business case come into play. Its a matter of perspective and awareness.
I see it as sharing information.
I am able to determine what is useful or useless for me once I visit a site, but there are many sites that I don’t know about.
I never knew about the Conservative Treehouse until I saw a link to it in a comment on another site.
That’s how I found CTH,too.
Which is why I didn’t originally post the link. Although, we link to Twit and all manner of other sites here so……
Thanks for posting the link. Some new information I had not seen from other sites.
Your time is not more valuable then Forestanon’s.
Sorry, ideas of a man who bases his life work (his words, not mine) on “Evolutionary Biology” are not worth following in my opinion. If he gets the foundation so wrong, his opinions can be right only by accident.
I’m an evolutionary biologist by education and training. Curious to know the basis of your comment. Evolution is a poorly understood theory, especially for molecular biologists like myself. The origin of long, complex strands of DNA is totally unknown.
I’m just guessing you’re not a biologist.
Will you at least let me define what a woman is? 🙂
The amount of time and effort scientists have spent on trying to find a way to explain away the Creator is staggering. We were created. Without acknowledging this people in science waste a lot of their and our time. Study natural selection instead of evolution. God created and programmed DNA fully perfected. That’s why we can adapt and change with changing environment. Believing (and that’s what it is – a belief) that everything appeared out of nothing for no reason is so unscientific, I’m not sure why it even still gets a mention anywhere. It shouldn’t, but people need to find a reason for their unbelief in the Creator.
And to answer the poster below – no, we are not evolving (using your terminology), we are devolving. Look up genetic entropy. Our DNA is getting worse with every generation. There are beneficial mutations, but they always remove some DNA information never to be recovered, not add to it.
Sorry for being off-topic.
In regards to this guy’s web-site – the collection of news items is worthwhile, but I wouldn’t buy his book.
What is wrong with evolutionary biology? Biology is always evolving. The Creator built evolutionary biology into His creations.
We are supposed to evolve. That is part of the process of creative design.
Einstein got some major things wrong but he also got some major, major things right. Einstein was a great mathematician but a horrible physicist.
Answered you in the post above. Natural selection, not evolution.
Much like CTH, something of value I see at AC’s site is his round up of current news stories and the often illuminating comments from his readers. I linked to the news portion of his site.
Sundance, sure hit a homer on this piece…
Spot on, spells it out …where this is going and how were getting there….Period.
There has been a War on Capitalism from the Usual Communists. But what the Multi-Nationals are doing is also an assault on Capitalism or Free Enterprise– I prefer not to use Marx’s terminology.
It’s anti-market Statism. That’s why they love over-regulation. They help write the regs because they know little guys can’t compete. It’s Monopolistic. It’s Fascist.
In the last election, Woke Corporations teamed up with the American Gestapo, Antifa paramilitaries, Mad Scientists, Election Thieves and Chinee Commies to overthrow the People and their Right to Self-Rule.
That’s why the Occupy Wall Street -movement has disappeared. They’re on the same team. Billionaire Oligarchs and brick-throwing Black-Shirts.
Wall Street is Occupied. Main Street gets kneecapped. And the Mean Street Rent-a-Riot mobs are Corporate-Funded.
Until the rent-a-mob folk are no longer useful. Then they’ll be in line for the cattle cars just like those they think their enemies.
Sundance said, “Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.”
Maybe the CEOs are in on it because they have been promised something?
There is no logic behind major corporations allowing their profits to be gutted almost overnight.
But in a world where Babylon Bee seems reasonable compared to reality, it could be anything!
At the beginning of the pandemic, early April 2020, my friend who is a union waitress, was told that all big events in the city would be shut down for at least a year and not to expect to work..I thought..how do they know this..the Unions were in on the shut downs!!
I think the Global corporations now own most of the governments of the world.
Robert Heinlein wrote a book called Friday, which discussed just that sort of world, where there were corporate States and nation-states, and also terrorist groups for hire, computer surveillance, genetic manipulation and other assorted 21st century horrors.
A few weeks back I went to my local Safeway. Outside the entry two employees were wrestling a handbag from a woman who apparently had been shoplifting. This is the new norm and it’s happening A LOT. I purchased an air conditioner from Lowes a couple months back, all their compact air conditioners are stored very high at the top of their pallet racking. Once again, because shoplifting is the new norm.
One thing that is happening which is under reported, ignored or law enforcement has not made the connection, of arson fires in home improvement stores to cover large thefts. A month or two ago there was one in California and another in Eastern Washington. The one in Washington was a Home Depot and caused over 2 million in damage
New Home Depot near me has all their tools on lock down. They said they were losing 15 or so tools a day. The employee had to hand walk my electric screw driver to the cashier.
All the stores in SoCal have had their tools on lockdown for the past several years. The employees have been told not to confront the thieves, and most are emboldened enough to walk into the store and walk out in broad daylight. Thank you George Gascon!
In OK criminals are locked up instead of tools. Our prosecutors prosecute and our juries convict and our judges sentence. We have plenty of crooks, but most of them are in prison or will be, and the rest are deterred from wholesale theft.
We are in a recession here but is not as deep here as elsewhere. Our gas is second cheapest in the nation [$3.53/gal where I buy] & housing also 2’nd cheapest [after Cleveland]. People are moving here like mad, but houses go up like mushrooms to meet them because building is only lightly regulated here.
On the downside, our Senators and Congresscritters are GOPe and mostly prevailed in our recent primaries.
Do you live in a metropolitan area, the suburbs or small town? In Texas Hill Country, I live in the country, but I also spend time in some small to mid-size towns. I am not personally aware of increased crime in Texas but as an extended guest, I am no expert on that.
My primary residence is in small town on the California Central Coast and I spend a significant amount of time in Los Angeles. It’s shocking how that city has deteriorated.
I believe crime will continue to increase until there is some accountability. Right now politicians, corporations and criminals cooperate with each other and make sure the middle class gets stuck with the tab; for bailouts and/or grants to political supporters, failure to prosecute criminals and pass the loss of goods and increase money for ineffective programs to the consumer.
There are more addicts and mentally ill people living in the open air mental asylum euphemistically called “homeless encampments” in cities but the escalating criminal behavior seems to be on the rise in all communities.
Viva 🇲🇽 Mexico!! None of that crap happens!!
“Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.”
Yes, if you see what’s going on with the stock market…it appears to have no connection to reality.
Meanwhile, I read a comment a few weeks ago about car repossessions. Something about people getting Covid money, buying cars, and when that money runs out, no way to pay for it.
That money likely drove up the price of used cars to what it is today.
And then there is this news:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/why-an-arkansas-town-could-provide-a-grim-road-map-for-america-if-car-repos-blow-up/ar-AA10h00z
Sounds like some predatory loan practices going on in AR.
Businesses taking advantage of low income people who used their wuflu checks to buy vehicles they couldn’t afford.
Nothing but ugly came out of the china poison, including the people responsible.
Sundance: “In the era of subsidized and controlled economic management, I’m not so sure the corporations are stakeholders in economic growth. Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.”
I too am at a loss to explain what is going on. Large corporation after large corporation has gone ‘woke’. Even charities like the Salvation Army have gone woke! I quit monthly contributions after 50 years!
The phrase, “Go woke and Go Broke” doesn’t seem to phase them. This applies especially to companies like Disney and myriad large corporations in the US. Even if their financial base is the millennial “woke” generation why alienate the rest of your customer base?
As a long time investor I truly am at a complete loss to explain this kind of corporate behavior. Things have been turned upside down.
I remember years ago when someone asked Johnny Carson for his political affiliation and he answered, “I’m not answering that. Why alienate half of your viewer base?” The new rules that apply here have completely changed and to what end? Something else is going on!
I agree, it’s all weird in the world of finance. Even the people inside the finance world say something weird is going on.
I am glad to see this subject! I have surmised somewhere in those 2000+ page congress bills are where they have paid off the corporations. How is it that the automakers have not financially collapsed ?
We know how big Pharma is paid off by government buying jabs..maybe the government is buying billions of dollars of EVs. Or the billions sent to Ukraine are being laundered not just for American politicians but for corporations?
The automakers are guaranteed to stay in business by the govt’, in return they put tracking software and other items in their vehicles as a trade off. Why do you think Obama friendlies run GM, etc. They are all interconnected.
And how long can that go on when governments are broke? Are WEF$ going to fund the world?
The rich are not counting themselves in on the NWO socialism scam. They expect life to go on, heck, improve, after the serfs are dealt with.
IIRC, POTATUS has declared that the Federal Government’s fleet of vehicles will be completely electric by, I believe, 2030. That is a big chunk of change. I think that Big International Business saw how well Big Pharma/Hospital/Doctor did during covid and how easily our government destroys businesses who do not fall in line with the plans of government. There may be even more Big Government rules coming down the pike and Big Business wants to be first in line.
Here is my quick theory: Board members (& CEO’s) of public companies are being replaced with liberal activists. If you extend that to the private & non-profit sector, liberal activists are being placed on boards of entities like the Salvation Army. Take a look at General Motors, Mary Barra, the CEO, was installed by Barack Obama. Look at Exxon Mobil, now 1/3 of their board is made up of ‘activist directors’. Then cascade this theory to Universities, then to school boards, etc. Democrats do not have the #’s for major initiatives, so they do precision targeting of ‘positions of power’, so that they can “dictate” their initiatives, when they cannot win on merit.
Here is an article on Exxon Mobil showing an example of this:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exxons-board-shakeup-could-force-review-billions-dollars-spending-2021-06-09/
The great march through the institutions.
A quick glance at the definition of fascism and the role of corpirations would help.
Take a deep dive into the Gamestop stock situation. Due to insane levels of leverage by hedge funds and banks, this $12 billion non-S&P company is considered a “systemic risk” to the entire market. The entities hugely shorted GME stock and then individual investors bought the stock and are simply holding it. Those holding the short positions are getting slaughtered.
There is tremendous stock price manipulation via multiple market strategies/tricks.
It is a new world order being implemented.
Normal human motivations are no longer important.
Instead we see actual demonic motivations coming to the forefront.
Satan is removing his mask and showing himself to be the true master of the earth.
It doesn’t make human sense, ’cause it ain’t human.
We are not battling against flesh and blood.
We need to keep that in mind.
We need to use different kinds of weapons against this enemy, in this war.
I think they are being paid by governments. Probably threatened also. The US has not enforced our anti monopoly laws in decades. Companies and organizations have gotten too big, powerful, and rich. We are paying the price now. Microsoft didn’t give money to politicians before the Clintons. Clinton’s DOJ started an investigation of Microsoft for anti trust and monopolistic activities. There was talk of breaking them up.
Gates went to DC with his checkbook and the investigation went quietly away.
Gates was probably laundering cash through Prince Alwaleed to the Clinton’s. That was their method of hiding it, note how Alwaleed partnered with Gates on many ventures. Also the Saudi’s paid Clinton’s a lot of cash.
You may be on to something. During my career, without getting into specifics, I worked with the Secret Service in Silicon Valley. It was during the mid to late 1990s that I was in this assignment. (Security). It was also during this period that Clinton, Gore and many others made NUMEROUS trips to Silicon Valley.
I have always believed that it was more than just PR gatherings and ‘fund raising’ events with big tech executives. We truly do have the best government money can buy.
Anyone living under theillusion that our government , and government officials are working in the best interest of ordinary Americans is living in a dream world.
The Democrats are shaking them down with the weight of the Govt’ Fines, BLM armies, etc. Look at the recent big fines that are making the rounds in the news, some of them were also targeting Warren Buffet owned companies, etc. Ofcourse in the case of Warren B’s. companies he is paying them off like a vig…. and then using the fines as a loss, so his circumstances are a little different.
They don’t care about their customer base.
They care about pleasing their real boss, the ruler of this world, the prince of the power of the air.
This isn’t a human enemy we are facing, so this doesn’t make human sense.
We can’t fight an enemy we don’t understand.
But we can look at the clues of who he is, by looking at what he is doing.
He is destroying families, he is murdering children in the womb and perverting those who escape abortion with the transgender and homosexual agenda.
He is sowing sloth and discontent in society. He is promoting drug use and destroying lives.
He is destroying trust in communities and all institutions, including the church and governments.
He is seeking to cause war within and between nations.
He hates us and wants us dead.
All of this seems orchestrated because it is. It is under the direct control of the great enemy of God and Man.
We cannot fight such a being with the tools we would use against a human enemy.
Where he sows discord, we must sow harmony under God.
Where he destroys, we must build upon the firm foundation of Christ.
Where he sows hate, we must show Godly love.
Mere humans cannot win against satanic forces.
But God can.
We must seek and follow God.
My experience is not typical. The median sales price of a home here is less than 5x the average annual gross income, even at the current peak. New builds are still going up with asking prices in the $250K range. Restaurant prices surged a bit late last year, but have essentially been flat since Ukraine flared up – wait staff are always thin on the ground. Grocery prices are up, but not anything like 50% to 80%, and stocking issues have been relatively rare. Everyone who wants to work seems to be able to find something, help wanted signs are everywhere. Construction of new buildings/businesses seems normal from pre-Covid times. Food festivals have gone on as they have in years past, prices seem up about 20% from 2019, but there doesn’t seem to be any supply challenge with them.
In other words, besides gas prices, if I was not reading CTH and related places that have been sounding the alarm, it would be hard to notice anything amiss in the local economy or local culture aside from the 10% or so who are still too scared to breathe freely in public.
Ever drive by the local car dealership and notice the empty lot? Yet they’re still in business and no one seems to be hurting.
There’s a row of dealers nearby, all of them are filled with cars. The overflow parking lots around town from pre-Covid aren’t there any more to deal with excess inventory, but if you want a car, you have choices so long as you can afford them (all but one new car is $26K plus, all but 1 used option are over $15K). My dealer is currently advertising about 300 units for sale on the lot, about 1/3 new and 2/3 used.
Two local Subaru dealer’s lots were packed with cars and no parking spots in the lot…yet they only had one car to show me…my friend went the week after me..same thing..they had one red outback to show her..
I don’t know where you live, but your situation sounds very similar to mine here on Long Island (except that new build construction here is far higher). The real estate market here is still higher than its ever been before, crazy in fact, and demand is still strong.
I keep in mind that in times of inflation, unemployment always lags, and I don’t think it will be until unemployment really hits that the real estate market will founder. However, some signs are already evident. The hot real estate market has also driven commercial rents higher – this in spite of the drop-off in prices since Covid started, due to more people working from home.
But with the higher rents and lower sales due to inflation, I have talked to several storeowners who are very concerned about their ability to continue. Aside from that though, and higher gas prices, and the lunatics still wearing masks, as of now things are pretty much status quo.
I was just thinking about Biden’s wish that we all buy electric cars. I don’t think the auto manufacturers could possibly accommodate even a large bump in electric car-buying. And what would happe to all of the plants making gas-powered cars? Re-tooling can’t be done overnight and new supply chains need to be set up. What a mess.
It is likely a designed fail in the auto industry to make room for the Chinese cars, trucks and heavy equipment. Coming soon!
CAN HEAR NEW CAR COMMERCIAL JINGLE
HEY EVERYONE. what’s America?
Soccer, Bugs, Tofu,and Chevloret
It reminds me of the story of the MIG pilot who defected from Russia in his MIG to Japan in the late 1970’s…1979 if I am remembering correctly.
Throughout the book, there are numerous mentions of how the communist party hacks would waste lots of money on the dumbest things, while ignoring much more serious problems they should have been spending money on.
The pilot recounted how when it came time to harvest, much of the military, including officers, had to help with the harvest, and still much of it rotted in the field.
He also mentioned how a base commander replanted trees along a road entrance to the base because of expected officials coming to visit. He ignored those who said the trees would die because of transplanting them at the wrong time of year. When they died, the commander transplanted more. When they died, he had them painted green.
The same air base dumped thousands of gallons of jet fuel because base officials could not account for so much missing coolant. Connected officials drank it because it was better alcohol than their normal booze.
Those inside the system did not care what was spent or wasted as long as they were not affected. It mattered not how those outside the system survived.
As for buying an electric car if you don’t like high gas prices, I guess the homeless problem can be solved by just telling them to buy a house.
It’s real life “Idiocracy”.
When that movie came out in the early 2000’s I’ll never forget my dem college buddies would laugh and say this is all about the Republican Party.
Instead of laughing and just saying “nah man, this about the Dems”. I literally pulled instances of Democrats doing nearly identical stupid s—t that they did in the movie. And I was able to say, “tell me how this was a Republican type of plan, when you guys did this exact thing on this date xx/xx/2000.
Electric cars is just the rhetoric. The real plan is to remove private car ownership.
^^^^THIS^^^^
^^^^THAT^^^^
No cars, no holiday flights, no free press, no single homes, no bars, no restaunts. Except corporate chains.
No walking in parks, camping, beaches.
Just the TV blaring eternal 5 minutes of HATE.
There is insufficient electricity generation capability to power electric vehicles.
What the Globalists want is for most of us to die off and the remaining people to be serfs, and chivvied into a few mega cities where they will either walk or rely upon mass transit.
About a month ago, I was speaking to a friend about her trip to Hawaii and she was telling me that they have canned Spam locked up and behind the counter there. That was the first time I had heard of that until this week when I read a news report that NY was locking up canned spam and ham.
I watched a Greg Gutfeld show video last night and they talked about it. And one guy pointed out how interesting it is that spam is locked up but criminals aren’t. 🙂
I haven’t had Spam in probably 30 years. I still remember the taste.
Vienna sausage is about all I can stand…I hate processed meat. The meat at walmart that is plastic packages in salt solution …is nasty.
Gah! I use to eat Vienna sausage as a kid too…then gave it my kids and grandloves. Quick snack lunch. Yuck yuck yuck…can not eat them.
That’s sadly funny truth!
I grew up eating fried spam sandwiches as a kid. Once in a great while I still get a hankering for a fried spam sandwich. Then I am good for another 5 years. Ha!
I used to live on Oahu. Spam is is like the number one food eaten on a daily basis by Hawaiians.
I didn’t know that. Interesting!
Ive never tasted spam..I am stocking up on those little canned hams sold at the Dollar General..just incase.
It’s been jokingly said that Spam is the “national food” of Hawaii, due to its high popularity there.
Dates from the war I believe. Can vouch for it too, getting married there and visiting a number of times and staying with locals. They eat it like I eat bacon.
My food building has a few cases of it in stock. It’s good in moderation and very shelf stable. If one can still find the ‘flavors’, some aren’t bad. I got to like the chorizo flavor after awhile.
Upstate NY here. People driving around just as much as ever. I keep wondering when I’m going to see less cars. Grocery prices keep going up. I keep picking up extras for stocking up and look for discontinued items as they are priced to go. Family member works at BJ’s and says it’s busy more days than not.
Yesterday I was at a large mall that I hardly ever go to (for safety reasons as they have more trouble there than they like to admit). I was using a $50 gift card to a women’s clothing store. Came out with 3 tops for $3.76. (Trying to use gift cards up before places go under!)
Anyway, the mall itself was not super busy. I kept the mantra of “Stay focused!” when being distracted by other stores that I have enjoyed in the past. We have 2 weddings to go to this fall so I went to Macy’s to find a dress. Macy’s was bustling – the fitting room, the nearest cash register. (And yes I waded through all the Dr. Jill flowered tablecloth dresses and found an awesome solid violet dress)
Lastly, I resigned from my library clerk job of 7 years last September as I was unwilling to prove jab status or be tested every week. I look at Indeed and ZipRecruiter about once a week and there are TONS of openings for jobs of every sort. I am willing to work but won’t consider places that require jab or penalize with mask wearing if not. So I’m taking my time with that waiting for something that appeals and will appreciate a committed worker.
Because mega corporations biggest customer is the government…
Bingo, Kathryn.
The best indicator that an Antifa riot was coming to your town was when expensive, out of state cars began appearing in droves.
Antifa members are the less-gifted children of bureaucrats (our new vassal class). Think Fredo from the Godfather.
Fredo was three to five full standard deviations more intelligent then the leftists that antifa produces today.
But hey, they are just ideas. Nothing concrete. Well, other than that concrete they throw through windows of Starbucks.
Which btw, I always enjoy. The woke corporations always bare the brunt of the vandals.
There are some major disconnects. Because of these, seeing the actual picture of what’s going on becomes very hard to do. For example, one would think that Gavin Newsome, Governor of one of the biggest states and Democrat darling, would be well informed on Covid shots. Except he wasn’t, took the shot, and had to hide from the public because of adverse reactions.
What other disconnects are there? I would bet that a few of the big tech names are also not well informed. They’re following the script, yes, but not given full details of the plan. I don’t think Twitter execs are informed. They’re getting a free ride from the gov’t and making money, so they go along.
Which brings us to corporations. If we look at the big picture and those globalists pulling the strings, I think they know that the world economies are toast. They know there’s no way that debt can be repaid as it’s gotten far too large. They’ve all raked in money from the process, so they’re safe. But, I doubt that they’ve let CEOs of most of the corporations know what’s going to happen. They let them think it won’t be as bad as it really will be, but aren’t letting them in on the full plan.
Toss in departments in gov’t agencies running on auto pilot without administrative control. Factor in State level politicians who are bought and paid for in the “Big Boy” club and others who are being blackmailed. They are all completing part of the plan without really knowing the whole thing.
All of these things scramble any effort to figure out what globalists in charge are really working toward. Personally, I think make as much money as possible, control as much things as they can (including countries), grab as much power as they can, and crash economies to hide what they’re doing. On the other hand, sometimes I get the feeling they’re just bored and betting each other on how much crap they can outdo each other with, sort of like Mortimer and Randolph Duke only using the world as their stage. Hey Mortimer, I bet you a dollar I can bring the US economy to its knees.
Then, there’s the last option … that it’s a concerted effort by China and/or Russia to topple the United States so they have a chance to take control of one of the richest countries in the world.
Boy if college educated CEO are that stupid….wait ….this is the reason why we are in this mess…..
You would be surprised at how many CEOs are not very smart and don’t know what’s going on in the companies they are supposed to run. They got there by kissing the right rear ends and having the right mentors. They are mostly figure heads with large salaries.
Do we really know he took the shot? It’s a major problem when the people can no longer trust those in power. And, justifiably so.
So it’s a case of *the left hand – now knowing what the right hand is doing*…. Yikes!!
Live in OC CA. Lots more petty thefts recently (stealing from garages, eg). Just got back from Alaska. Drove from Fairbanks to Anchorage , back to Denali and then back to Fairbanks. Highway 3 EMPTY the whole trip. In Anchorage, lots of Class A 5-story hotels built, they were at best 30% full. Lots of closed restaurants from the pandemic. In Denali, stayed at cruise ship connected hotel. Cruise ship guests many Europeans , retirees. Very few families with young children. W/o cruise ship 1-2 night stay, the place was dead. Raft outfitter said they broke even in 2020, had a blow out 2021, and now normal. I guess normal is no tourists in July.
Walmart just announced many layoffs. Fewer cars on the street.
Hmmm. Corporate workers.
The BMW corporation doesn’t appear to be a WEF sponsor. (?). I’m surprised!
https://www.weforum.org/partners#search
Western suburbs of Chicago: I’ve noticed in the past 2 weeks more people putting the damn mask back on in the grocery stores. These people are nuts! Also, shoppers are only buying stuff that fills the “child seat” in the cart.
60 store Pizza Hut Franchisee is going to close a couple of his stores because he can get employees.
Professional Mom/Pop local Landlords can find enough labor/help and are under staffed. Units sit vacant longer b/c they can not get people to make ready for leasing.
Service is either over the top too kind or it is bare minimum.
Overall, I think it is a cultural thing. Most of the young Americans are not capable of working with the integrity that comes with have a job, responsibilities, a commitment – that once met, gives pride and a sense of self worth – that all is lost on this generation.
Working is a joke, they are gonna tax you into poverty anyways. I know people who typically put in 80-90 hours a week. They no longer work because the communist are bankrupting them with nickle and dime fees and taxes, etc. It’s not that people are lazy, at the end of the day if you are worse off, why work? It’s a F*cking joke in this country now… just like it was under Obama. Same communist regime running the economy into the ground.
Atlas Shrugged
Why contribute any effort to this?
Yep.
As long as a person isn’t stealing, going Galt seems to be a moral way to go.
Why be complicit in your own destruction?
You are exactly right. There is something profoundly wrong. I have been tracking this beast for a couple years and still haven’t figured out what it is. All I get are clues, tracks in the dirt, a rustle in the bushes, but I can’t get a glimpse of the damned thing. Earnings projections being revised down all over the place, but the stock price doesn’t go down the way it should. Another foot print in the sand.
Like a Ponzi scheme right before it collapses.
You are right.
It is a Beast.
It is not human.
It doesn’t have human motivations.
I posted on the other economic thread about the shelves at Walmart chock full of home goods and this season’s clothing mostly discounted along with some winter stock from the past winter. They are already getting in new winter stock, but I don’t see those racks stuffed with 100 items alike in 4 different colors and 5 sizes. Cheaply made, cheap-feeling quilted fabric winter jackets for $46 which is a high price for Walmart. I expect that anything with polyester will jump in price due to petroleum needed to make the fabric.
I did notice one interesting thing. I bought a new freezer and was comparing prices online. What WAS surprising was the estimated delivery dates: at least 3-6 weeks before delivery. That was true for Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Best Buy. One freezer I liked had an estimated delivery date in January at Lowe’s. It’s as if they aren’t holding large inventories and instead are ordering from manufacturers as online orders come in. And maybe that manufacturers couldn’t count on producing certain models.
How are the prices in your neck of the woods? Looking at appliances here and they’re $200-$500 more than 6mon ago and very few are even in stock
I didn’t go to any stores to look. But, I would guess that there are probably very few in stock which is why the delivery dates are so far in the future. According to the Wayback Machine, the price for this model today is $65 more than the price in 2020.
I was in the semi-tourist Sierra foothill towns of Grass Valley-Nevada City an hour NE of Sacramento last weekend. It was very much an alive, happening scene but I don’t know if pre-plandemic it was more crowded. The drive back to Berserkeley had the terrible traffic typical of a Sunday afternoon in the busy I-80 stretch in the West Valley between Sacto and Fairfield.
Pre-scamdemic the parking lot at the Rockridge BART station in a nice part of Oakland would fill up early in the morning. It was barely 10% full in the depths of the lockdown and has come up to around 60-70%.
Most days there are not many cars in the local Whole Foods parking lot, way less than in the old days.
Gas is now in the mid-5’s as opposed to the mid-high 6’s of a couple months ago. Still outrageous.
Oh BTW today is the day that they officially kicked the last of the homeless out of People’s Park and have officially started construction of student housing. The 50+ year bastion of liberation, freedom, and sticking it to the m
The 50+ year bastion of liberation, freedom, and sticking it to the man, but in actually a sinkhole that attracted every human behavioral pathology imaginable is no more. So at least there’s a bit of progress.
One other thing: there’s been a rash of catalytic converter thefts from Prii here in the East Bay.
That is going on in Tuscaloosa AL. What’s with catalytic converter?
Platinum
That’s a thing here in Philadelphia too.
Central Florida, Ocala area.
Economic activity is booming.
Farms that have been for sale for a year or more are now under contract. Oftentimes for cash. The farm nearby that sold last year for $1.2m is now for sale for $1.9m with 1/3 the land, the current owners subdivided out 26 acres. There are showings almost every day and I expect it to be sold soon. Another farm, 46 acres, big house, 2 barns and a 7 acre lake just sold for 6.8m. Second time it’s been on the market in 5 years. Its last sale price 5 years ago was 2.3m.
The local Publix and Winn Dixie are always bustling and the shelves mostly full, altho every week a couple of things are out of stock. This week it was Dino nuggets(my grandsons love them), so the boys will need to settle for boring rectangles.
It is near impossible to find anyone to do work. I have been trying for over a month to find a reasonably priced weed wacker. Have been waiting over 4 months for someone to redeck my porch. The builder of my barn said he had a wait list of almost 2 years for work.
I-75 and the FL Turnpike are always busy 24 hours a day, lots of cars, trucks, RVs. The springs are getting lots of people.
Ocala is a town with a large winter population (horse industry moves south for the winter) and usually half that in summer. This summer has been almost a continuation of winter traffic.
Prices of horses are high and going higher, even tho grain and hay etc are vastly higher as well.
The local municipal airport in Dunnellon has built 90 new hanger spaces available for use by the end of August, and almost all are rented.
Amazon, Chewy, UPS all have huge new distribution centers here. More huge buildings are under construction and I don’t know what they are intended to be yet. The Villages is exploding in size. Apopka has become a huge bedroom community of Orlando.
The rich are truly unaffected.
I don’t fear cold weather and heating costs here. In late January thru the end of February we do get some nights down in the mid to low 30s but by 9am it’s back to at least the 50s or 60s. A/C is not bad if your house is well insulated with high ceilings and you keep the temperature at a reasonable 76-78. I’m older so 78 suits me just fine. Ceiling fans are a big help.
I have grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, kumquat, peach, fig and avocado trees all producing. I have a few raised beds which produce copious potatoes, beans and tomatoes. I take manure from the barn and compost it so I never buy soil or fertilizer. I have a whole house generator and 300 gallons of propane. I have a simple pump on my well just in case I run out of propane. Worst case, I have a bicycle and a horse for transportation. Lol
Life here is good for now but you never know when reality will hit even the wealthy.
“I have grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, kumquat, peach, fig and avocado trees all producing. I have a few raised beds which produce copious potatoes, beans and tomatoes. I take manure from the barn and compost it so I never buy soil or fertilizer. I have a whole house generator and 300 gallons of propane. I have a simple pump on my well just in case I run out of propane. Worst case, I have a bicycle and a horse for transportation. Lol”
You’re doing it right! As an aside – years ago, I drove through the Ocala area and thought it was the best part of FL I had seen and I’ve been all over the state. Areas there kinda reminded me of Lexington, KY – beautiful horse country. Hat’s off to you.
And Washington County, PA..we bought our Ocala house sight unseen..we closed in Pittsburgh and the closing officer told us it reminded him of Washington County, PA..he was right.
The rich are truly unaffected.
Excellent point..here in Greater Vancouver Teslas and other luxury cars are everywhere.
It’s not uncommon to see three or four Teslas at an intersection in our small town.
Rich/ and just getting by…middle class is all but gone now.
Cheers!
Teslas are all over WA and OR also. Commie cars used to be a rarity and now they are plentiful on the freeways.
Same here in Ottawa, Ontario….Teslas everywhere! Many businesses with help wanted signs. Eerie feeling that my fellow Canadians are sleepwalking pretending all is normal. Meanwhile our Crime Minister is enjoying a two week vacation in Costa Rica with his family. Yup…nothing too see here, just ridiculous!
We bought in Ocala April of 2021..right by Silver Springs State Park…got the house with guest house and pool for 245000..we airbnb it and it’s staying booked..my utilities jumped from 350 to 750 last month..thanks for the insight on the horse people..I was booked all last winter with horse people.
You can gassify wood, to run generators. Easy to build. See YouTube videos.
“Value of companies is not dropping as fast as the negative impacts.” The stock market has its own irrationalities, and we keep getting these “bear market rallies” because traders think we may have hit bottom (NOT), or are just following daily trends. I think the stock market could hit its true bottom over the next 2-3 quarters, as the realities of stagflation sink in, then values will better align with these negative impacts.
As to the corporate leadership not fighting the WEF agenda, I suspect there is a sort of “Elite Club Oblivion,” where the top dogs are flattered to be part of WEF, have bought the Climate Change big lie, and are oblivious that half of emissions are coming from Asia, 3X where they were 20 years ago, and those people don’t care about climate change, just growing their middle classes at the expense of ours. “Useful idiots.”
Here is Sacramento, the largest employers are governments and four very large nonprofit health systems, so they’re not seeing demand for their output contract like BMW. Main Street here serves those employees, and don’t seem any worse off, that I can tell, those that survived the lockdowns.
Gas prices are awful, and food prices high, too, but I understand Uber had a blowout quarter, as the number of drivers sky-rocketed, people needing extra income to make do. So there’s that.
I think we’re getting bear market rallies because we’re in an entirely fraudulent financial system. I suspect they want China to crash first and then we’ll fall. And who knows when that will be? There are already runs on Chinese banks. Evergrande hasn’t paid its bills in about a year, buildings are sitting empty and unfinished all over China and still the Chinese stock market is doing fine. And the media is like Leslie Nielsen standing in front of the exploding building telling everyone there’s nothing to see here, move along.
Something that has dawned on me for months…does not make sense to destroy your customer base. So it has to do with a total destruction of the economy….a remake….and the CEO knows if they want to survive to hell with their investors. They must partake in the managed decline. Do or die …for themselves.
“However, for some weird reason the system that evaluates corporate wealth is not responding negatively to the reality of the situation.”
Possibly just be a simple case of the old “the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”.
“Something is profoundly disconnected, or else the corporations would be raising hell with the politicians.”
Corporations acting against their interests may simply be a case of the natural degeneration of democracy to tyranny described by Plato. Everything is really downstream from philosophy/religion – explicit or implicit. Napoleon lamented for all his worldly power and command over the hearts of his men, he was nothing compared to the power Jesus had over men. Brute force and money are, ultimately, coping mechanisms, a consolation prize, it is worth remembering.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychological-disorder/
Excerpts:
Plato proposes a mechanism by which democracy finally mutates into tyranny. He tells us that the parasitic “drone” class that builds up under late oligarchy and democracy can be divided into two subclasses, the drones with “stings” and those without. Those without are the passive hangers on, whereas the “stinging” drones are the nastier bunch, aggressive and inclined to stir the rest up to sedition. Think of the upper middle-class wokester, saddled in debt for a useless college degree in grievance studies, whose idea of finally doing something with his life is signing up with Antifa or the Bernie Bros.
A second group playing a role in the transition to tyranny, Plato tells us, are the rich, who are terrified of being accused of “plotting against the people and being reactionaries and oligarchs.” As a consequence, they pay off the drone class. Think of corporate groveling to political correctness and the writing of check after check to fund various left-wing causes. A third, last, and largest group are the masses, who don’t pay much attention to politics but are happy to take a share of whatever the drones extract from the rich.
This payoff arrangement is unstable, and awaits the rise of a stinging drone ruthless enough to go the whole hog and wage “class war against the owners of property.” This is the tyrant, and the tyrannical personality type is an extension of the democratic personality type, bringing its characteristic lawlessness to full fruition.
We are there. I think the only thing keeping most of us from seeing the depth of rot beneath the surface is the massive pumping of borrowed/printed money. Not easily done in Plato’s day but fits the bill nonetheless.
paying employers to not lay off people… yeah thats been extended thru 2022 via CARES ACT.
The rich benefit from inflation that is probably the simplist answer to that.
The other fact is these large corporate conglomerates have also wanted regulations to stifle any up and coming company i.e. competition even though regulations cost the large monopoly like corporation so…. dont worry they will get bailed out like the 2008 fiasco.
grilled chicken w bacon sandwich, reg waffle fries, regular shake = $14.10 yesterday at chic filet.
hard pass next time.
I don’t do fast food, but my friend does…. said he ordered two meals recently with large drinks, price was ~$30… for what used to be a little over $10 for 2 meals.
no more long lines.
“Either people are (1) less productive, or (2) working less hours, or (3) holding multiple jobs…. or a combination of the three.”
SD I personally think the workforce has grown. Companies have entered clown world too. So how are they doing it in a shrinking economy? In real ville that would be quite impossible and it would be one of the 3 options above. But again I don’t think so and a lot of the jobs are paying a lot.
They’re being subsidized to hire. If you were once a responsible CEO or on the board of directors and found this to be utterly irresponsible you most likely would not speak out. It’s like the Drs in the hospital systems and covid. This is why Davos must have a new fiat system. It makes them God in a perverted manner and they have grown accustomed to it. They have really abused it since the financial collapse.
So why do this? Keeps the politicians from feeling the fire and the people remain snowed under. They are trying to prolong the pain. This buys more time and keeps economy moving along for the time being.
I‘ll forgo my BMW association.
But will tell you about the resorts I market for: they are panicking.
You don’t buy private resort memberships when you can’t afford food and gas.
One VERY LARGE resort’s sales staff quit, enmasse, last Sunday. No one showed up to sell to…. so no income, importantly: no chance for income.
Shlt is hitting the fan. You don’t quit a job, in times like these, unless you have lost hope.
At my large supermarket in a neighborhood with a large senior population I see the staff is often very stressed out. Prices have increased a lot there. One day an elderly man didn’t get the discount on an item he expected and he became so agitated he pushed his cart into the stomach of the employee trying to explain why it didn’t apply. She became very angry but eventually deescalated the situation. He insisted she give him the $2.50 back and she had to redo his order. There are often homeless people sitting on the curb at that busy entrance to the supermarket even in the high heat of summer in the Phoenix metro area.
Ponte Beach Fla here, very busy. I live near the beach and lots of out of state plates. I have mentioned before that I have a business which sells adhesives to most of the packaging and box companies in the SE, the last two months have been the worse since we started eleven years ago. We were hoping that it would not be worse then the Obama years but old joe is going to beat him.
It’s definitely worse than the Obama years… you can just feel it. The younger generations who only know the propped up stock market boom of the 2010+ era, and who support Obama and other liberals are gonna get their A$$es cleaned out financially. They won’t even know what to do because they will be so broke, no parties, etc. Need we not mention the other outliers and black swan events.
I live in Florida. Normally we get an uptick on homeless for winter. With it came the door to door scams, tree trimmers and car break-in. and theft. The police were always very good about removing panhandling. Now we have a constant state of homelessness, drug addicts, and panhandlers who are building encampments in wooded areas. How fast things plummeted under the theft of 2020. Now we have to worry about drug addicts wandering up to the car at lights, being hassled or attacked walking in the ‘downtown’ river district.
We even have a neighbor who apparently is a trust fund baby whose wife left him& now is a drug addict. He is constantly in and out of rehab. His yard is a mess, house in disrepair, electricity cut off ect. Police are constantly stopping in and driving by because he brings home addicts and tramps .Or they wander through my neighborhood to his place People are ODing. Another ambulance was called this morning. It won’t end well. In the meantime surrounding families are put at risk. They’re scared.
It’s shocking that so much pain has been intentionally inflicted on Americans by OBiden Regime
No noise to filter needed when Sam’s Club egg prices are at a 300% increase.
That’s reality.
BMW must be expecting a bailout like the Airline industry. To big to fail.
Hey, I get a $1200 stimulus check from the Gobernment and paid $6000 in new taxes for that and I’m eating bugs now and told to be happy. It all going to be fine.
They are lying.
Report from the north Olympic Peninsula in Washington State
Local food stores seem to be busy. The beef section is often crowded with people taking a long time to make their decision. The high prices combined with confusing promotions on selected packages result in obvious stress.
Every 4 – 6 weeks I make a Costco run. The Costco trip sometimes includes the shortest possible stop at Wal-Mart. Both places are busy when I shop early in the day mid-week.
I rarely have any reason or desire to go to a shopping mall. When my clothes wear out, I replace them with the same brand, style and size from on-line retailers. With the exception of new hiking boots, all my recent major purchases were made on-line.
I recently walked out of the local farmers market empty handed and rarely buy fresh fruit or vegetables in a supermarket anymore. Very high prices and poor quality. Looking forward to my garden veggies which got a late start this year. Also have permission to harvest some blackberries from a rural property.
Everyone I know is focused on gardening or some other food project like baking or canning. Cutting back to two meals / day and cooking almost everything from scratch has enabled me to deal with inflation and the increase in gas prices.
Two meals and a snack, here.
I have a garden, raise chickens and make my own bread, so a lot of my cooking is home grown and from scratch.
Go into town about once every week to ten days, down from two to three times a week when I retired in 2017.
Dropped my gym membership, seldom buy new clothing locally. Duluth Trading has terrific sales and their clothes suit my lifestyle well.
So I’ve made adjustments and will have to make more.
But my parent grew up during the Great Depression and told us kids about it, so I know it is possible to survive hardship.
And I know Who my Savior is.
He’s got this.
The large corporations are arms of the global state.
They are no more independent than the soviet factories were. The management are personally rewarded based on alignment with government, not on the success of the company sales. Its no different to the uniparty.
They don’t care if the company is ruined, or their workers are unemployed as long as they get the rewards.
Why do politicians ruin their own countries?
Because they derive reward personally for doing so. Its no different to senior management at large companies. Get in position, trough out s quick as you can, then walk away.
The last few years are evidential to this fact that a full soviet has been created at the large corporate level and the common enemy is the population.
In a suburb of Washington, D.C. — where a lot of the residents are government workers — people seem to be going about their lives quite normally. Despite the high cost of gas, there is still a lot of traffic on the highways. At an area chain restaurant last Friday night there was a line of people waiting to be seated. However, it may be that the chain restaurants are doing well because so many small, independently owned restaurants closed permanently at the height of the pandemic.
At a popular shopping mall, there seemed to be about the usual number of shoppers for summertime, but a way higher percentage of the shoppers had the appearance of being either visitors/immigrants from other countries. Also, many of the stores that were in the mall just a few years ago are gone now — and quite a few (way more than normal) locations were covered over with walls featuring some sort of designs or notices that another store would be coming soon. Since I often had shopped there for children’s clothing, I was struck by the fact that nearly all of those stores are now gone. Within the anchor stores, there are few cash registers open — and one has to actually hunt for a register open to pay.
Within our community there are also many store locations and office locations that are vacant — with signs saying that they are available. However, the construction of new housing is still happening — and, despite what seems high prices, those townhouses and single family houses do seem to be selling.
I live in southern NC, and a couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fact that there was less (or almost no) traffic on the Interstate heading north by tractor trailer trucks. We did the same route the other day, more traffic in general (gas prices are lower). We did see more tractor trailers on the road, but the loads looked smaller.
We noticed here last week that there are cargo ships heading into Wilmington just stocked way up with cargo containers. I guess companies are starting to ship to the east coast since, apparently, the west coast is still blocked. I wondered if there was a correlation between that and the trucks I noticed on the highway.
Our local restaurants aren’t getting the traffic they normally would this time of year (we live in a summer tourist area). One restaurant owner said they are closing on Wednesdays instead of the normal Monday in order to get some of those Monday customers, also, so they can give their over-worked staff a day off. Overworked because they can’t get enough people to work. Why is that? One guess — we live in a retirement area so not enough young people, but I’m sure there are other reasons related to the economy or the long-term change from Covid lockdown shenanigans.
My job of 21 years is ending in October. Manufacturing job in South Carolina. The company has been open for over 60 years.
Will you be able to stay in the area, or must you move?
My husband works in the semiconductor industry – his company has just frozen all hiring when they had TONS of openings. Forecasts are not good.
We shop in both SW VA and in NW NC. There are less people in the stores, prices are higher and higher as package sizes are shrinking.
People in our area are still struggling to obtain needed materials for farming, building, repairs, etc.
The ‘hiring’ signs at many places locally are still up, but not sure if they are real or what the wages/turnover looks like.
We are going to a monopolistic neofeudalism. We have known this for a while.
Like in feudal Europe, feudal lords (=current global elitist superclass) exempted of the laws that applied to everyone else . Living out of the rents that land ownership (the communards owned nothing BUT were NOT happy) provided and engaging in warfare occasionally).
When communards in one European kingdom started making noise they banded together to squash the discontent and etc…
“When communards in one European kingdom started making noise they banded together to squash the discontent and etc…”
It was the Swiss Guard that was protecting King Louis and Marie from the mobs…..until the mobs came back armed and in great numbers.
Let them eat cake, indeed. We will have our day. Our rulers, theirs.
Been pondering these same thoughts, as to the attack on farming and farm animals. The pictures of the tractors on the roads in the Netherlands were mostly a familiar green and yellow color scheme.
Wonder what that well known company knows that we don’t?
We’ve lived in our house for 25 years and while we’ve done a good bit of upgrading, we haven’t upgraded anything in 20 years. Some things hadn’t been touched since the 1940’s when the house was built. We needed repairs and wanted some facelifting and so refinanced our home last year to do it all. This week, we’ve heard from literally every single contractor who’d been putting us off. It’s crazy and scary how quickly this economy is crashing.
Marco “Gang of Eight” Rubio is up for reelection. As with the last time, I will not be casting a vote for his reelection.
Nor for my “Republican” Congressman (Rutherford), who has done nothing toward fixing 2020, much less future elections.
Both our senators are the pits, the dem running against Marco is even worse.
Then there’s turn coat Charlie running for governor—again.
July 4th seemed to be a turning point here in the Heartland – people have become very cautious with their spending because basics are so expensive. Based on how the big box home improvement store has emptied out, I would say consumer discretionary spending has pulled way back. Gasoline is now down to $4.25 from $5.39 – even so people are driving less if they can. There still is very little new car inventory at dealers. Companies now are cutting Capex and people to try and preserve profits – Agency workers and early retirements first.
An old depression era saying seems more prescient everyday. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” . I remember Mom saying that, she was born in 1920.
My neighbor, who is well to do, had his riding mower engine give out. It was a 10 year old Craftsman. To my surprise, he ordered a engine and replaced it himself saving more than double the price of a new riding mower. Where we live ther are very few ‘gubbiment’ jobs, so people are practical minded. Even MD’s typically know how to weld something up.
I can relate. I have a 2006 Grasshopper 72 inch deck front end mower. 29 horse 3 cylinder liquid cooled Kubota with 2400 hours on it. The end of last season it was getting pretty wonky and not performing up to par so I told the wife I was thinking of just replacing it with a new one. The more I thought about the less I liked the idea of spending $17,000 plus so instead I had it gone through and repaired/replaced everything it needed at a cost a little over $1800 and it now run and mows like new. With all the uncertainty these days I’m a little gun shy. Especially considering that according to the fuel consumption calculator on the Grasshopper site I’ll spend somewhere between $3000 -$3500 just for lawn mowing gas this season. Gotta love the Vegetable in Chief. 😡
I think that the explanation for what’s happening is simple: the corporations care more about pleasing their true master, the gov’t, than they do their customers. The customer no longer matters. What matters is pleasing the gov’t; when corporations please the gov’t, the gov’t helps them out. It’s crony capitalism at its finest.
I lived for decades in North Carolian’s Triangle area. Now living in rural NC.
The urbanization center of Cary/Raleigh/RTP is booming. Massive amounts of Agenda 2030 capital flowing in, and multinational corporate expansion (BigTech, Big Government, BigHealthhcare, BigUniversity, Big Pharma and more Big Pharma). This is a strategic Agenda 2030/2050 Mega Region. There is a high-end grocery on every other block. No one even blinks at the doubling of already high prices. Expensive restaurants, brew pubs and high end shops are still full. Everyone driving a late model expensive car.
When I drive in there, it’s an alternate world to what I see out here in the country.
Lots of building going on there too. Mostly government projects and luxury high density units being built by large national contractors.
To source even more globalist monopoly money, our fascist pantywaist governor (Cooper) is now planning a Green New Deal.
Just outside the aristocrats’ Utopia, billions in “new capital” have appeared out of thin air to create a new “megasite” for all the dirty manufacturing and slave labor camps that will be needed to support the elites – complete with “light rail” systems to make sure their “dirty labor” lives far enough away.