Sign Wars

It's the political season and the demarcation lines are obviously drawn in Fallbrook. 

These two signs are situated  fairly close to each other on a nearby street.

I find it somewhat amusing. We live in a fairly even split community, perhaps the conservatives have a slight edge, I'm not really sure.

But at least we live in a country where we are free to share our political differences publicly, without risking a shooting war. At least so far anyway.

Certain streets in Fallbrook have always had intense political signage, the Macadamia and Banyon area being a principal hot spot.

I drove over there today to gauge the political temperature. 

One measly sign up this year and an outdated one at that. Does this guy know (or even care) that Trump and Pence don't even speak anymore, since the insurrectionists went to string him up on that fateful January 6th?

Great boss, but whatever.

Anyway, Macadamia ain't what it once was, politically speaking, since Larry Miller passed and the Kinsler's moved to Iberia. Used to be every other house was visibly blue or red.

The signs are definitely getting a bit meaner, they have more bite but those are the times we live in.

It will all be over relatively soon and one side or the other is going to be pissed and heartbroken. I predict that one side will take defeat honorably and the other side will blame everybody in the world and say that they were cheated. 

Of course, they are only cheating when they lose, witness the recent Kari Lake primary election in Arizona. When they win everything is copacetic.

Trump, Harris, Biden, Lake, deep down I don't think we have a serious problem with any of them. The problem we have is with each other, the people who put them in office.

We are at war with each other, both sides are entrenched and there is no apparent middle ground. We have diametrically different blueprints for our country.

I feel like the Clampetts at the beach, all dug in, waiting for the grunion to invade.

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I know who I am voting for. I am not going to tell you, will let you guess. 

One side is talking about putting its political opponents in jail after the election, abolishing the Department of Education and letting Elon Musk take his scythe to the ranks of government employees. 

Then we will end the Ukraine Russia War in one day by forcing Ukraine to give in or else.

It is amazing that the Wall Street Journal thinks that Musk's employee cutting is a good idea.  Wonder what the head of the Teamsters thinks?

Did you see what happened when Musk denuded Twitter, before it became X?

He fired all the employees that actually kept it running, alienated many advertisers who left in droves when the people who were left placed nazi and hate ads next to their product placement.

Musk told them to Fuck off and leave if they didn't like it and they did.

And now he is suing them for doing just that.

And you want guys like this in charge? Seriously?

One of my coffee cohorts was on my ass about Kamala Harris this morning. "You used to hate her and now you like her? What's up with that? Defend yourself."

Well, first of all, I never hated her, never said anything negative about her, in my memory. Check the blog, am I wrong? I have always been somewhat ambivalent about her. I never sent pictures of her with her head in the toilet or blowing Willie Brown because it isn't my style and I find it offensive. I have my hot buttons. One side is drill baby drill, regardless of consequences and the other supports reproductive choice. Not a tough one for me.

Harris seems to be an even keeled person and I think we can use that right now. I think she believes in the constitution and is not really interested in bromances with dictators like certain other people. I told my friend that although not my first choice, which would have been Whitmer, she was certainly the lesser of two evils.

We have a big problem in this country. People don't realize that Trump ginned up the economy with a tax cut and raised debt massively. If you cut revenue it has to be paid for somehow and Congress has never been able to pare anything down.

But people pay debt in the future not the present, so they just remember the good times with the Trump economy not the fact that others have to clean up the mess. Now Trump is calling for an additional tax cut, which will put us farther in debt. He says that it will all be offset by tariff revenue. 

Most economists think that this is a ridiculous notion. Morningstar believes that the 10% across the board tariff he is advocating along with further tax cuts will result in a decline in our economy.

We project a 1.4% decrease to the level of US real GDP in the case of the uniform tax hike, and we project a 0.5% decrease in the case of the China tariffs.

We expect a lower impact from the China tariffs because of the probability that many companies will dodge these tariffs by rerouting through third countries.

The probability-weighted impact of the Trump tariffs amounts to 0.13%, which we’re rounding up to a full 0.2% hit to our long-run GDP forecast. This reflects a higher likelihood of protectionist measures regardless of the party in power (as shown by the recent Biden administration tariffs on electric vehicles and other goods).

Higher tariffs unambiguously cause a reduction in real GDP and are often thought to increase inflation.

Trump had a masterful strategy when he aimed his sights on uneducated people without college educations. The Ignorance strategy. Have to go back to what Ken Kesey said, there will always be more stupid people around than smart ones.

Not sure how you fight that but making education and the educated the target of your ire was brilliant, worthy of Himmler and Goebbels and Goring. Not sure how you go against that.

Good luck America.