Friday, May 20, 2022

That would be 113th Mr. Drudge, sir, you ignoramus

 World's oldest man to throw 113rd birthday party!

And look what that links to:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5384415/elon-musk-gulfstream-g650er-private-jet-flight-attendant/

Friday night at The Drugged Report.

US COVID-19 deaths cross the 1 million mark in the New York Times data Thursday, May 19, 2022

 

Deaths per day in this data to date:

2020 (306 days): 1131
2021:                   1310
2022 (thru 5/19): 1264
 
First 19 days in May: 421
Apr 2022:                 426
Mar 2022:               980
Feb 2022:            2247
Jan 2022:           1987 
 

Deaths per year in this data to date:

2020: 346,050
2021: 478,286
2022 thru 5/19: 175,675

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Bloomberg economic model forecasts 25% tariffs between democratic and autocratic countries would roll back globalization to 1990s levels and leave the world 3.5% poorer

Arguably that would be a good thing for American workers, but Bloomberg doesn't care about that.
 
For three decades, a defining feature of the world economy has been its ability to churn out ever more goods at ever lower prices. The entry of more than a billion workers from China and the former Soviet bloc into the global labor market, coupled with falling trade barriers and hyper-efficient logistics, produced an age of abundance for many.But the last four years have brought an escalating series of disruptions. Tariffs multiplied during the US-China trade war. The pandemic brought lockdowns. And now, sanctions and export controls are upending the supply of commodities and goods.All of this risks leaving advanced economies facing a problem they thought they’d vanquished long ago: that of scarcity. Emerging nations could see more acute threats to energy and food security, like the ones already causing turmoil in countries from Sri Lanka to Peru. And everyone will have to grapple with higher prices.

More.

The story never mentions how those newly introduced extra billion plus workers reduced economic outcomes for the already established middle classes around the world, especially in America where the full time job of the 1990s became a thing of the past.

If I'm repeating myself, I don't care.

 


 

 

Husband: "Chicken wings $34"; Wife LOL: "How many do you get?"

 Chicken wings $34...

The answer: about 15.

Menu says: "Market price". 

But many food costs measured in the PPI have been accelerating faster than the CPI rate. In April, average wholesale food prices in the index jumped 18% from a year earlier, according to government data released May 12. It was the largest 12-month increase in nearly five decades. Eggs surged 220%, butter jumped 51%, fats and oils were up 41%, and flour 40%, the National Restaurant Association said.



 

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

How low could the S&P 500 possibly fall from the Monday, Jan 3, 2022 closing high of 4,796.56?

 Some are calling this a dot-com-like bubble "burst". 

Jeremy Grantham thinks a 40% decline is in the offing.

That burst happened gradually, actually, from August 2000 to February 2003, more like an old balloon slowly deflating in the corner of the room under a table months after the party had ended.

On an average basis, the S&P 500 fell from 2471.50 in August 2000 to 1314.31 in February 2003, in March 2022 dollars. That 1157.19 point drop amounted to a drop of 46.82%.

Before climbing to the spectacular heights we know today, the S&P 500 had another appointment with more bad news, unfortunately, in March 2009, achieving an even lower level than February 2003.

In March 2022 dollars, the S&P 500 bottomed in March 2009, again on an average basis, at 1023.36. That was 1448.14 points from 2471.50 in August 2000, a drop of 58.59%.

That was quite a long process, a very bad, no good, rotten almost a decade for stocks. Real per annum return August 2000 through March 2009 averaged  -8.14%.

Many children watched their parents lose everything, including the house.

Those February 2003 and March 2009 type of events must be recognized as within the realm of real possibility even today.

4796.56 minus 46.82% would put the S&P 500 at 2551.

Minus 58.59% . . . 1986. 

Not saying it will happen. Not saying it's even probable. Just possible, because it has happened before.

Smart investors are ready for the possible.

The index is down 18.19% from the all-time-high tonight.

 



Yeah, and God forbid you breast-feed your baby

 

This headline was not approved by the global warming police

 

 
The incompetents at The Ministry of Truth have been notified.

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

The next war's cannon fodder: Students at Wyoming commencement boo Senator Lummis for saying there are only two sexes

 They will be blown to smithereens in the next war by America's future conqueror, or publicly tortured to death by the victors in a gruesome spectacle of mockery.

During the commencement address on Sunday, Lummis said constitutional rights were under attack in the U.S. and “even fundamental scientific truths such as the existence of two sexes, male and female, are subject to challenge these days.”

More

The ruin of a state is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners, and contempt of religion, which is entirely our case at present.

-- Jonathan Swift 


 


Housing predator Blackstone says housing affordability is comparable to the 2007 housing bubble, but it isn't

Here:

Blackstone’s Joe Zidle calls homes almost as unaffordable as the 2007 peak. Yet, he believes a crash is unlikely due to a major difference: Most owners aren’t using their homes like an ATM.

That's a total smokescreen. Look! Over there! A deer!

Peak unaffordability was actually in 2014, when Blackstone was buying up all the inventory individual homebuyers couldn't afford.

Housing was actually more affordable during the 2007 housing bubble than it is today. The read then was 20.5 but in January 2022 it's more like 17.3, much worse. People who are paying these high prices are nuts. If it all blows up again you can bet firms like Blackstone will be waiting in the wings to acquire bargains you have to sell at a loss.

Meanwhile Blackstone today remains a huge buyer of commercial and multifamily rental real estate, especially student housing:

80 percent of the firm’s real estate holdings are in sectors with shorter-length leases that will allow Blackstone to benefit from rising rents . . ..



Median household income now buys about 17% of the median sales price of a house, a new low: Joe Biden is the Barack Obama of unaffordable housing, only worse

 Housing affordability has never been so bad.

The median sales price in 1Q2022 climbed to $428,700.

Median household income in January 2022 is estimated at $74,099, which buys 17.3% of the median house sold in the United States.

Official annual figures through 2020 are indicated in this chart.

 


 


Monday, May 16, 2022

People who don't care are already slaves


 There is a kind of sluggish resignation, as well as poorness and degeneracy of spirit, in a state of slavery.

-- Joseph Addison

Sunday, May 15, 2022

LOL, obsessive truck tire slasher Juliette Kayyem thinks there's a whole CONVOY of colluders behind the Buffalo shooter

 But that lone wolf language fails us in an era when hate and radicalization now serve as a proxy for the collaborative herd, for the co-conspirators and colluders. Gendron wasn’t alone. His mission was effective because he was supported by an apparatus that provided the ideology and means for the hunt. Based on evidence from a manifesto that he reportedly posted Thursday night, Gendron did not perceive himself as being alone: He had his people; they were there for him.

More

State terror is OK, got it? She's a Harvard man, see, a former Obama official.


 


LOL, The New York Times is the Hotel California of newspapers


 You can sign up for it, but you can never leave.

Essentially, so far, it appears like The New York Times does not let its subscribers cancel their subscription even if they want to given that the producer’s request was “rejected by the system” on two separate occasions. 

More.

Kevin Williamson: Biden has done everything wrong on inflation, all at once

 For The New York Post, here:

And it is what you get when you combine the wrong monetary policy with the wrong fiscal policy, the wrong trade policy, the wrong regulatory policy, and the wrong energy policy.

Friday, May 13, 2022

For the money, LOL

 Why women file for divorce more than men...

Filing for divorce might be their only choice to secure assets . . .

LOL, back to back stories curated by Drudge say Xi Jinping did not, or did, appear at the Winter Olympic Games, take your pick

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rumours about the state of Xi's health have been swirling for years, with fresh speculation sparked by his unexplained absence from the Beijing Winter Olympics. 
When Xi Jinping strode into the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium in the winter, waving and bundled in a black jacket and mask, hundreds of Chinese spectators and performers cheered in what was meant to be the start of a victorious year for their nation's president.
 


Thursday, May 12, 2022

American real economic growth rates in the 21st century are a catastrophe, down 44% from their 20th century levels 1929-1999

GDPCA, compound annual growth rates

1929-1999: 3.534% (almost 79% better than 1999-2021)

1999-2021: 1.979% (-44.001% from 1929-1999) 

1977-1999: 3.263% (65% better than 1999-2021)
 
 

It's like someone flipped a switch and went away.

I turn on Clay and Buck out of the blue and get them normalizing gay by interviewing black Republican Rob Smith

It's become a feature of so-called conservatism now, no longer a bug.





COVID-19 in the US in April 2022

COVID-19 in the US in April 2022

Monthly deaths in April were the third lowest since the first wave of the pandemic.

Cases in April meanwhile ticked up slightly, though mass self-testing makes that an increasingly dodgy indicator. Many cases are escaping tabulation.

Deaths per day in 2022 through April (120 days) fell to about 1,400 vs. about 1,131/day in 2020 (306 days) and about 1,310/day in 2021:

Deaths per day in Jan 2022: 2,001

Deaths per day in Feb 2022: 2,247

Deaths per day in Mar 2022:   980

Deaths per day in Apr 2022:    426. 

Deaths per day in May 2022 have ticked up to about 497 through the 11th.

The goal is to get this down to 100 deaths per day, to make it more like the flu.