Economy

One Fraud After Another…

by MyBaconPress

Wow, the latest report is that job growth is VERY low and unemployment is up. Whaddaya know? And remember, he fired the last person who put together that report and replaced her with a toady yes-man who would massage the numbers. So AFTER massaging the numbers, the best he could do was 22,000 jobs?!? My gods, I wonder what the real number is…

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Yeah, yeah, there’s crime everywhere. But the oh-so-clever trick that seems to be deceiving so many MAGA out there? He finds a city he doesn’t like (Democrat run, preferably black mayor) and announces it’s the worst, crime-riddled city in the world. (It isn’t.) He sends in a bunch of troops who do some gardening and stand around a while. Meanwhile, whatever work those troops were supposed to be doing goes undone. THEN Donny declares the city “cleaned up” and withdraws the troops.

Then he, wait, I hear a noise. Hang on. OH MY GOD, there are space aliens out in the yard. They’re killing all of my neighbors. It’s a horrifying bloodbath. We need a hero! Wait, I’ll get my pea-shooter. That’ll do it. BAM! POW! ARGHH! OOF! Oh, thank the gods, I got them all. They’re all dead. I, Mark Bacon, just saved the entire planet from a space alien attack with my trusty pea-shooter! You’re welcome. Gimmie my noble prize now.

See how easy that was? All I had to do was describe it. Now I expect adulation. MY story, after all, is every bit as true and accurate as all that “crime fighting” the First Felon is doing in target cities. And I didn’t only save a city from “crime.” I saved the entire planet from space invaders…

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I sure hope the video of that boat being blown up by the US off the coast of Venezuela is AI because if the video isn’t faked, the act is straight up murder, isn’t it? CAN you just blast a boat out of the water and declare it was full of drugs later? Quick question: what if it was a boatload of drug enforcement agents taking a load of seized drugs out to the deep ocean for disposal? What if it was Gilligan? The Skipper, too? A millionaire and his wife? What if it was a movie star? Or the Professor and Mary Ann?

The maladministration can’t describe the people on the boat. No info on the pretended drugs. How many people were aboard? Genders? Ages? How did they know it was a drug run? It was off the coast of Venezuela. How did they know it was going to the US?

I guess he’s STILL trying to look tough and I readily acknowledge my lack of a JD but I don’t know of any authority anywhere that allows the US to go blow up private boats for the “sin” of simply being in the water hundreds of miles to the south of the US. ‘Will murder to distract from Epstein,’ I guess…

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His lie during the campaign was that he would fix the economy on day one. HIS words, not mine. Of course, that lie blew up in his face and the economy started tanking. So he did what he always does, he lied about it. The worse it gets, the greater he declares it. Oh, and he updated his timeline. First the economy would boom later this year, then it became next year. Most recently, he has move the timeline to 2027 before the economy responds.

All he has to do is keep pushing off the timeline and MAGA will stay loyal and enthralled, so that’s what he’ll do. That boy NEVER delivers. He just pushes off the deadline and the deadline never comes. So by 2027, we should ONLY expect he’ll be promising happier days by 2028. But even at 2027? At the rate he’s going, at the rate prices are going up because of him, at the rate jobs are being lost because of him, businesses are being hurt because of him, income is down because of him do you think you’re going to be able to survive until 2027? I think it’s a fair question…

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Wealth taxes in Norway are under fire. In an effort to enlist the support of people who will NEVER pay the wealth tax, rich people have put out an advertisement with a little song. The message of the song is, “Don’t come to Norway, we will tax you till you’re poor, and when you have nothing left, we will tax you a little more.” Does that sound like anything you may have heard before?

“Tax the rich. Feed the poor. Til there are no rich no more.” That’s from ‘I’d Love to Change The World’ by Ten Years After. It’s not a risk. No one is talking about taxing rich people into poverty. But it’s a common lament from rich people – and people who pretend they might become rich like that some day soon. It’s ALWAYS a lie, but it gets sold to low information voters over and over and over again.

A wealth tax is a tax paid on the value of an asset. People pay taxes on the income from an asset but in most countries they don’t pay a tax on the value of the asset itself. So if you have a million dollars in stocks, you pay a tax on the dividends you receive but not the value of the stock themselves. A wealth tax fixes that.

It’s calculated by adding up the value of properties, savings, investments and shares, and deducting any debt. Private companies count as part of their owners’ wealth. There are discounts – for example, only 25% of the value of citizens’ primary residence is taxable. In countries where a wealth tax exists – and there are only three in Europe – it’s often the only tax the richest people pay – so it ensures they pay something.

Rich people like to pretend they’re “self-made.” They’re not. The closest you could get to an actual self-made millionaire would be an entertainer but even they have teams of people who help them. NO ONE is “self-made.” Rich people benefit from the societies in which they live. They get educated employees from the schools they don’t want to pay for, they move their goods on roads they don’t want to pay for, they get a stable society in which to conduct their business they don’t want to pay for, they’re protected by police and firefighters they don’t want to pay for.

We should have a wealth tax here in the US. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have each proposed such a thing but, of course, the rich have many minions in this once-great nation. And as we’ve all seen a million times, what we SHOULD do, we rarely actually do. It’s really rather embarrassing…

Better or Much, Much Worse…

by MyBaconPress

No matter what else may be true, when the House GOP passes that big, beautiful bill, they’ll be needlessly adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. They’ll be adding more money to the national debt than any other President in history. Remember when the GOP resisted such things? And, really, all of this bloat isn’t being added because America found itself fighting a war or to provide services to the American people. It’s worse.

He’s adding trillions to the national debt while cutting services to millions of Americans and reducing our capabilities in just about every measurable way. He’s adding trillions to the debt just to pay for a tax cut that benefits mostly himself and his other hyper-wealthy friends. Do you suppose Fox Not-News is going to be breathlessly reporting how much each family gets to pay for that debt, like they do when a Democrat adds to the deficit?

I know, I know. We’re going to have to hear – AGAIN – about how tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy and pay for themselves. The simple and plain fact that, so far, tax cuts for the rich have starved the government of much needed revenues and allowed the rich to enjoy the greatest wealth inequality since the turn of the 20th century and probably in history and have YET to stimulate even the smallest modicum of the economy and NEVER pay for themselves continues to befuddle MAGA, so the story continues to work. That’s frustrating…

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Two things, side by side. 47 says the US budget is looking at a surplus this month. Um… yay? He managed that by devastating the government. It’s like balancing your household budget by not feeding two of your kids anything, ever. Sure, you saved money but at what cost?

US businesses are going to Europe for money over uncertainty about 47’s tariffs. Moody’s has downgraded the US credit score. Americans are suffering. I’m not sure that surplus is all that great, assuming it’s at all real in the first place…

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In a possibly unrelated but absolutely related event, a severe storm has devastated Kentucky and bits of Missouri. Recently, due to budget cuts, the staff at the National Weather Service (NWS) in the area has been cut by roughly 30%. The local NWS office had to rely on other offices to fill in gaps in their own capability. In this case, they managed, but having to turn to “workarounds” to keep things going doesn’t really inspire confidence in the safety of the system.

It’s like the FAA suddenly experiencing all kinds of issues – and the only thing that changed was DOGE cutting the support staff without regard to what the support staff does for the agency…

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Jeez, I’m really getting sick of it, all the whining, I mean. In just the last couple of days, 47 has spent time whining about Bruce Springsteen, who seems to have set off this latest round of instability. Then he whined about Taylor Swift. Then he whined about Walmart. Then he whined about Springsteen again. Then he whined about ABC News. Then he whined about Kamala Harris. Then he whined about Bono. Then he whined about Beyoncé. Then he whined about the courts not letting him break the law. Then he whined about Oprah Winfrey. Then he whined about Obama.

Really, doesn’t he have anything better to do? If he spent HALF as much time working his job as he spends whining about people he’s mad at, he might understand his responsibilities. Instead, whine, whine, whine about everything, all the time. I’ve been on road trips with young children who didn’t whine as much…

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A man named Mark Felt became a character in the Watergate scandal (the original “-gate” scandal) identified only as “Deep Throat.” He helped Woodward and Bernstein figure out the scheme and break the story that brought down the Nixon Administration. His most important guidance came in the form of three words: “Follow the money.”

That advice remains every bit as true, today, as it has always been. Donny is a thief and a grifter. We should ALL follow the money at all times with this guy…

Evolution Of A Grift…

by MyBaconPress

Is Frankenstein beginning to fear the Creature? As of Tuesday morning, a group backed by Libertarians Leonard Leo and Charles Koch is suing The Felon over his tariffs. According to the book ‘Dark Money’ by Jane Mayer, much of the mess we suffer in Bizarro America, today, is the brainchild of Charles Koch.

Koch and a handful of his like-minded greed-heads spent decades distorting information, distorting intellects, and distorting morals. To me, it seems… inevitable that after embracing fraudulent information, dumbing down a third of our society, and promoting the very worst impulses of humanity, we would have ended up with something like the Drumpfster.

Apparently, it never crossed their minds that putting a creature like that into power might somehow come back to bite them in the backside. Now their investments are up, no down, no up, wait, down, no, up again, holy crap, WAY down, down, and down even further. They’re a little…concerned.

For perspective, they’re just irritated. But they’re rich. This whole mess THEY created won’t wipe them out like it will the work-a-day class. Still, it’s nice to see that they don’t like it, either. I’m not sure how it feels to note that if we’re to be saved from this insanity, it will be by the very people who created the mess in the first place…

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I wonder if MAGA remembers. He didn’t say, “eventually, things are going to be great” on the campaign trail. He said he would fix the problems on day one and it would be “easy.” I’m not putting words into his mouth, HE said it – over and over again.

Once in office, though, he hasn’t fixed anything. Pretty much EVERYTHING is worse. NOW he’s saying it’s going to be a rough ride and we’ll just have to hang on for dear life. What happened to “easy?” If I’m being as generous as I possibly can, perhaps he underestimated the depth of the problems. If I’m being honest, I’d say he was lying through his teeth from the start…

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Every once in a while, one sees an article talking about what corporations are actually doing with all that beautiful lucre they keep through the tax cuts for the rich. These days, what they do, invariably, is stock buybacks. They’re not reinvesting to keep prices down, nor are they raising worker wages. They buy back their own stock, reducing the amount of stock available. That, in turn, raises the price of the stock. Oh, AND they have the insider advantage of knowing WHEN the buybacks are going to happen.

In short, it’s insider trading on stock manipulation. It used to be illegal. That changed in 1982. The change was part of Ronald Reagan’s initiation of his assault on reality – “Supply Side Economics.” Ever since, corporate focus, when it comes to money, has been stock buybacks. Companies like the buybacks because the bosses get richer even if business slows. You don’t have to innovate or invest at all! No, just buy your own stock back and bump the price that way.

It’s not the executives who get hurt. In the end, it’s the investors and workers who suffer the losses. The practice should be stopped. After the revolution, let’s reinstate the rules that prevented companies from buybacks without careful SEC scrutiny. It turns out, SOME of those regulations we “deregulated” served an important purpose. Who knew?

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I know he lies about it, by the day, by the hour, by the minute, but Felon 47’s tariffs are a $6 trillion dollar tax on Americans. On Wednesday morning, I read an op-ed in ‘The Hill’ called ‘Trump just handed Democrats the golden ticket. Tariffs have unified the American electorate.’ It was written by a person named Jos Joseph. The piece suggested that the Democrats should HAMMER the message, every day, every hour, and every minute, that the tariffs are a $6 trillion dollar tax on Americans. Clearly, I agree.

Sure, MAGA will ignore the message at first. Fox Not-News will spring into action, ignoring the story by showing cute puppies, instead. Only later will they acknowledge the story by pretending it’s just insanity on the part of the insane left. But do you know what? People will still go shopping. I continue to believe, actions speak louder than words.

MAGA will listen, dutifully, when they’re told the tariffs punish the foreigners. They will. But then, they’ll get up and go grocery shopping. (Sorry, I don’t mean to use such outdated and arcane language as “groceries.”) Sooner or later, even MAGA will realize that the tariffs are a $6 trillion dollar sales tax, added by the Drumpfster so he and his very wealthy buddies can have a big, beautiful tax cut they don’t need.

There’s nothing right, honest, or honorable about causing some people to suffer on a daily basis so some other people can have more than they’ll ever need or use. I hope the Dems can make a message of it. These days, they mostly just make a mess of things.

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“Only the weak will fail!” Someone recently posted that to social media. Who was that? Oh, yeah, that was the First Felon, shortly before he blinked, and called for a 90-day “pause” on his tariffs seven days after declaring his “Liberation Day.” This whole piece was dominated by the damage Felon 47’s tariffs were doing. I’ve mentioned the normal supporters who are turning on him – even going so far as to sue him.

Elon Musk has been working him, too. Hard, if reports are to be believed. The rolling crematoriums have been suffering from the association with the Muskrat. The LAST thing in the world he needed was tariffs making it even harder to move his crappy products. Always remember, Musk bought the 2024 “election” for 47. Musk OWNS 47. At first, Donny tried to stick to his guns. I’d guess the last private conversation saw Musk threatening to let the world know EXACTLY how Felon 47 “won.”

So the Drumpfster backed down Wednesday morning. Sure, he said he had accomplished his goal. He ALWAYS says the exact opposite of the truth. He pretended ALL of the other countries – apparently, including the penguins – were “kissing his ass.” (His words, and…yechh!) The market recovered something like 3,000 points. SO… another crisis of his own idiotic making has been averted. For now. There’s no telling what moronic move he’ll make next.

I mean, he’s either a complete fool with no idea of what he’s doing – a position which can be easily defended – OR he’s the biggest market manipulator (read: “thief”) in the history of the country, engaging in insider trading over and over and over again – another easily defended position. Is he a moron or a thief? At this point, there really ARE only two options, although, I suppose he COULD be both…

Pain For Thee, Not For Me…

by MyBaconPress

President Musk started it. He said that in order to get the national debt under control, people are going to have to go through some “hardship.” He KNOWS aggressive cuts to government spending are going to cause pain and suffering. He acknowledges the fact. His attitude? “Tough cookies.” It’s easy for him, of course. As the sometimes richest thief in the world, HE won’t feel a thing. Not even a twitch.

Sub-President Trump – the man being told what to do by Musk and The Heritage Foundation – has now endorsed that same idea. The work-a-day Joes are just going to have to feel some pain to get things back to right. Of course, sub-president 47 has a couple of coins to rub together, too. He won’t feel anything, either. No, all this ‘hardship’ is meant for the working class.

The LLC – that’s the “Lazy Leisure Class” – started buying tax shifts 40+ years ago. I call them tax shifts, not cuts, because whenever they pass a so-called “cut,” some of the lost revenue gets shifted to the working class. The rest is managed by cuts in service. For 40+ years, the working class have been taking on more and more of the leisure class’s tax burdens and losing services in the process.

Two adages I live by: 1) When your outgo is greater than your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. 2) Government decisions should be focused on which option best serves the largest number of people.

We’ve just gone over the first one. Tax cuts for the wealthy have long-since reduced the nation’s revenues to the point where we can’t meet our obligations. (That’s been the goal, by the way.) They’ve trimmed around the edges as much as they could. Now it’s down to the meat and potatoes so “people will have to suffer.” But what about the second one?

Which option best serves the largest number of people? It’s simply not true that there is only ONE choice – only ONE option to deal with this mess the wealthy have created. There are two. Yes, when revenues fall short, one CAN cut costs. But it’s often true that one can ALSO increase revenues, and in THIS case, it’s absolutely true.

If we follow the path of the LLC, 340 MILLION people (minus a handful of the super rich) suffer. And I DO mean, “suffer.” On the other hand, we could raise revenue by increasing taxes on the highest incomes. Under THAT idea, NO ONE would “suffer.” Such an increase would only hit people who wouldn’t even miss whatever got paid out.

It’s important to remember, for the leisure class, this whole conversation is purely philosophical. It’s about the idea that they don’t WANT to pay their fair share. It’s not a burden. They wouldn’t even miss it. They just don’t want to. (Or, they think their awesome, regal selves shouldn’t HAVE to.) But for the working class, this is increasingly becoming existential.

I think option 2 – raise taxes on the highest incomes – best serves the largest number of people. Honestly? I think we should go back to a 94% rate on everything over $2.5 million dollars. That was the rate in 1944 and 45. (Technically, it was 94% on everything over $200,000. The $2.5 million is that amount adjusted to today’s dollars.) The justification? War is expensive – and it is. Since the US has become a State of perpetual war, we should just set that rate and leave it there.

SO… based on this reality – and it IS reality – it becomes obvious that NOBODY has to “suffer” or bear “hardships” or feel any “pain.” But I would bet the working class is going to feel pain. We’re a country of morons, governed by rich, greedy morons. EXPECT the wrong decision. EXPECT to suffer – so they don’t have to…

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I’m not sure why this has to be said, but if you plan to bring a letter of reference to a job interview, perhaps don’t include references from people who have, themselves, been subject to scandal and/or discipline.

In an effort to lend credibility to the RFK, Jr nomination, a letter was presented to Congress, ostensibly from doctors, who think his moronic delusions about vaccinations and other things are just peachy, thank you very much. Except, they aren’t all doctors and many of those who are, um, actually WERE and those who STILL are have all faced disciplinary actions.

There may be a nicer way to say this, but it’s easy for morons to impress morons. “Doctors” who ignore valid science (I mean science supported by the scientific method, not someone’s “feels”) might well believe RFK, Jr is “on to something.” Most of us just think he’s ON something – and it isn’t something good. I suspect that worm ate more of his brain than he realizes, missing part of his brain and all.

Vaccinations save lives. Vaccinations do NOT cause autism. People who insist otherwise are expressing their luxury – the luxury of never having had to visit someone in an iron lung. Or even the luxury of not knowing what an effing iron lung is in the first place. You’ve been spared that knowledge by vaccinations. And now you want to despise the vaccinations that have done so much good for so many people? We heard it from Forrest Gump; stupid is as stupid does…

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Um… you DO realize, don’t you, that the trade agreement 47 is citing as SO unfair to the US is the actual trade agreement 47 negotiated with Mexico and Canada during his first maladministration, right? Now he’s inflicting tariffs on our neighbors and allies – and, yes, China, too. I HAVE noticed the Chinese tariff is somewhat lower. Is that because China makes all that cheap crap he sells to his believers?

He says he’s doing it because of the trade deficit and fentanyl. According to experts (read: people who actually know what they’re talking about) most of the fentanyl brought into America is brought BY Americans. Not Mexicans. Not Canadians, eh? Americans. So, THAT excuse is clearly bunk.

If he wants American companies to come home, he should repeal all those glorious tax benefits rich people bought themselves TO move their manufacturing overseas in the first place. He doesn’t need tariffs.

I’ll tell you this: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a common thread in ALL of our national financial “problems.” The already grotesquely rich want more – and cannot be satisfied…

Just The Worst…

by MyBaconPress

I have to start by saying my heart goes out to Southern California. We, here in Northern California, have been through what they’re going through, now, and I know, without question, there are no words. I remember the panic of people in the moment. It’s all just a confusion of “Where do we go?” and “What, now?” I remember the stories people told, after, of how they made it out. I remember the stories about the people who didn’t.

I remember the wreckage. I remember the smell of the burned buildings lingering in the air for a long time. I know how they’re going to react to even the faintest smell of wildfire smoke in the future. And I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t lose anything. I STILL react. They will, too. The buildings can be, will be, rebuilt. The precious mementos are gone forever. But Nor-Cal DID come back and SoCal will, too.

Stay strong, SoCal…

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When a Special Counsel finishes their job, they’re supposed to issue a report explaining, in detail, why they did what they did. That is, why they prosecuted (or declined to) and the details behind those choices. Jack Smith has written his report and turned it over to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Apparently, it’s in TWO volumes. The first is about the election interference charges 34 negated by getting back to the White House. The second is about the Classified documents he stole, I suspect to give to Putin. The question now is, should AG Garland release the report for public consumption.

I haven’t seen it, of course, but MY guess (and yours, I’d bet) is that the report just says something to the effect of, “We were GOING to prosecute because we have evidence enough to fill three trucks, but then The Felon “won” the “election” and is expected to abuse his authority to protect himself so we had no choice but to stand down.”

Puppet-elect Thirty-Four Felonies doesn’t want people to know what’s in the report about him, presumably because it says, “Oh, yeah, he’s as guilty as can be and here’s the evidence!” So, he judge-shopped. It didn’t take long. He knows he has Aileen “Loose” Cannon in the bag and, oh, hey! Lookee, here. He took his case to his corrupt, loyalist judge and she put a temporary injunction on releasing the report. She protected him again – and just in time.

It will buy him time, which is the loophole he used to slither out from under the charges in the first place. Once again, with the help of a corrupt judiciary, he’ll get away with it. This is what the “law” is going to look like going forward in this once-great nation. Sometimes, I think this whole thing is going to get very ugly…

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I read an article in the ‘Motley Fool’ about Social Security. It pretended Social Security is low on funds because of an imbalance in the difference between paying in and taking out. It didn’t mention politicians “borrowing” from the fund for other purposes, then not paying the money back as promised. Nor did it mention the cap rich people enjoy that protects some of their income.

It pointed out that, in an effort to confront the shortfall, Congress started taxing SS benefits. Again, nobody ever mentions eliminating the cap rich people enjoy as a solution. (YOU pay in to Social Security on 100% of your earned income. Rich people pay a tiny fraction of that percentage from their income. It is generally understood that lifting that cap funds Social Security nicely.)

I noticed Congress started taxing SS in 1983. Guess who was President, which party, in 1983. Go on, guess. Did you guess Reagan and the Republicans? That’s the right answer. In fairness, the taxes were adjusted to get more in 1993. Clinton was President. I know, he ran as a Dem, but I’ve long held that Bill Clinton was one of the most effective Republican presidents in decades. He got away with it by hiding in plain sight, as a liberal. But he signed and supported NAFTA. He “reformed” welfare. He killed the free press. He increased taxation on Social Security. There’s more. He was a con, like it or not.

The point, here, is that Social Security can be fixed easily by simply removing the cap rich people pay from their checks. If they pay into SS on 100% of THEIR paychecks, like everyone else does, we don’t really have a problem. No, of course the politicians are just going to tell you there’s no more money and nothing can be done so you lose, but they’ll just be serving their rich paymasters…

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Musk bought Twitter claiming he wanted free speech, then turned it into an insulting conservative misinformation machine that regularly censors speech. Zuckerberg, apparently, likes what he sees in Musk’s example and has decided to follow suit and eliminate the guardrails on Facebook, as well. First he eliminated news feeds almost entirely, then, when they come back, he has opened the door to conservative misinformation to flow freely?

I don’t call for boycotts, per se, because they’re dumb and don’t work dependably. (Besides, who would listen to ME?) But we CAN avoid doing business with companies we don’t like or trust whenever it’s possible, if we choose. My advice? Pay attention to who still advertises on X and avoid them if you can. As Facebook declines, it would be a good idea to do the same with whoever keeps advertising there.

The ONE thing we can count on about a fascist nation is that money rules the day. Always. Most of the Small Folk KNOW they’re Small Folk and don’t think of themselves as able to have an impact. But we can. Collectively. By all means, flee X for Bluesky, but pay attention to who keeps advertising on X (and now Facebook) and direct your dollars accordingly. If nothing else, we can keep them from gaining some of the money they’ll eventually use against us…

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MAGA doesn’t seem to have noticed, yet, but The Felon is already setting the stage for the expected economic collapse that will accompany Trump policies. As we all know, they see Biden as old. VERY old. (He is, too. No argument, here.) They see him as senile. (I’m still sitting quietly.) They see him as incompetent. (He has actually done a very good job…)

They ALSO see him as a mastermind genius capable of some very detailed, intricate, and complex planning. It really depends on what they need at any given moment. According to The Felon, the senile, mastermind, incompetent, genius has set an “economic time-bomb” meant to blow up at a precise moment. Specifically, the moment the inauguration ends.

We all know how trump works. He’s been bitching about the horrid state of the economy for four years. The minute he’s inaugurated, he’s going to start claiming Biden’s successful economy for himself. It will go from “Horrid!” to “Hurray!” in moments. If he was smart (yes, I SHOULD stop there) he would simply not touch anything and let the economy hum.

But, he’s not smart – and he doesn’t plan to do that, leave well enough alone. According to him, he plans to reduce government revenues while instituting a shiny new program that STARTS with an $80 billion dollar stake. That’s going to do some damage. He knows it. But he doesn’t want to be seen as doing the damage he plans to do. He NEEDS that blame to fall elsewhere and, of course, he chose Biden. Curiously, the damage won’t happen until Trump takes office and starts doing his thing.

By definition, that is NOT a time-bomb. A time-bomb goes off at a specific time. If one sets a bomb to blow up at, say, 2 pm on December 31st, that bomb blows up on December 31st at 2 pm – because it’s on a timer. It’s a “timed-bomb,” see? A bomb that waits for a specific trigger, like, say, moronic policies triggering an economic meltdown? That’s not a time-bomb because nobody knows WHEN it blow – or even if it will.

It requires a specific act, like tax cuts for the rich, side-by-side with a shiny new, $80 billion dollar deportation program. BOOM! There’s a reason Mr. 34 Felonies suddenly hates the debt ceiling – and it isn’t that he plans to lower the debt. (I’ve noticed the price of eggs has gone UP since the “election,” not down, despite his promises…)

It’s a standard con trick. They ALWAYS blame their own economic wreckage on the previous Democratic administration, and they ALWAYS take credit for the economic successes actually achieved by the previous Democratic administration. Once, they even blamed and INCOMING Democratic administration for their own failures. Yeah, the party of personal responsibility…

It’s the Free Market, Stupid…

by MyBaconPress

Capitalist: 1) An investor of capital in business, especially one having a major financial interest in an important enterprise. 2) A person of great wealth. Then, thrown in to try to keep the rest of us on board, 3) A supporter of capitalism. (Uh-huh…)

It’s one of the greatest deceptions of all time. Capitalists have their victims (that’s you and me) declaring themselves capitalists and defending capitalism. And we do, too. If you ask anybody in America, odds are they’ll tell you they’re a capitalist and they believe in capitalism. You can see that one of the definitions is ‘A supporter of capitalism.’ That makes us feel like we’re ‘on the team,’ as it were – but we really, really are not.

Those first two definitions – rich people who have major financial interests in important enterprises – are FAR more accurate descriptions of capitalists, but do you know what THAT means? That means that, far and away, most Americans are NOT capitalists. (We’re the victims of capitalism.) We’re not rich and we don’t own enough to have “major financial interests in important enterprises.” We just get up and go to work, creating the wealth the capitalists keep – and then use against us…

Suddenly, I feel a need to make this point. There are NOT only two systems, Capitalism or Communism. I don’t support communism, either. It clearly doesn’t work – based on the idea that it has never worked anywhere in the world, any time in history. But this so-called ‘Free Market Capitalism’ ain’t working so hot, either, wouldn’t you say?

I support the middle road, once known as New Deal Capitalism. I call it ‘Social Capitalism.’ The rest of the world calls it ‘Democratic Socialism.’ That’s too bad, too. Americans have been fully conditioned, brainwashed really, to believe that the word socialism describes one thing and one thing only: communism, so the instant they hear that word, many Americans crap their panties and dive for the covers to hide their heads. But despite the stupid name, it’s really just managed capitalism, the kind that fights back against capitalistic abuse. It’s better for everyone – even rich people.

Right now, the poster child for the failure of ‘Free Market Capitalism’ is Luigi Mangione, the guy who gunned down the current poster child for capitalistic abuse, Brian Thompson. Mangione shot Thompson in the back, just gunned him down in the street. As of this writing, it appears Mangione shot Thompson as a symbol. That is, he had no personal beef with Thompson. Thompson became the poster child of capitalistic abuse because he was the CEO of the health insurance company that denied more claims than any other company.

Nobody seems to care. I see memes out there of Luigi superimposed by Photoshop into various work environments with comments about how he was there on Dec 4, on-site all day and right next to other workers. Never out of their sight, even for a moment. Why, the memes insist, Luigi couldn’t have done it. Alibi established. Obviously, it isn’t. It turns out, the police have a few photos of their own – and theirs aren’t Photoshopped.

Truthfully, when the shooting occurred, my first thought was “Someone who got denied.” I wasn’t alone. I felt badly that I didn’t feel worse about the shooting. I felt guilty that I was kind of happy to see a little guy get even for a change. As it happens, I’m not alone in THAT, either. I expected the party to end a few days later, as people got past their bubbling anger and re-connected with their humanity. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, there’s a “Free Luigi” movement starting.

Do you know who IS showing signs of concern, though? Corporate media. The media owned and operated by the capitalists. The message coming from both sides of the dial is the same – it’s poor form to shoot capitalists. Don’t do it. That’s not working, either. I suspect we’ve all noticed that NONE of them are promising to change their ways. They just don’t want people shooting them for the abuses. But people are really angry and most of us seem quite happy that a rich guy got his, for a change. And that’s the key.

Thompson’s program of denial likely killed thousands. THAT was just “good business.” HE was getting bonuses for increasing the bottom line so nicely. Families were planning funerals that didn’t have to happen. We ALL know this. We ALL know we COULD have decent health care in this country. But the capitalists don’t WANT us to have decent health care. They can’t profit if they can’t insert themselves into the process and all they care about is profit.

So, after forty years of living the ‘Free Market Capitalism’ life, one guy has reached the point of shooting someone and the rest of us are cheering the act. There’s even a new movement out there called ‘Board rooms, not classrooms.’ It takes the position that, if you’re going to be a random shooter that goes out and kills someone for fame – at least kill someone whose death benefits society. Don’t kill six-year olds. Don’t shoot up classrooms. Kill CEO’s. Shoot up board rooms. Go out a hero, like Luigi. (I’m only describing, and not endorsing, the movement, here.)

I think Luigi was trying to start something and I think he has. Somehow, this single act of defiance has loosed a torrent of anger at the way our economy works (or doesn’t, in so many cases). I suspect Luigi wanted other people to start shooting right away. That part didn’t happen but the anger is now at the top, not being hidden anymore, perhaps bubbling over. In fact, it’s being celebrated. There WILL BE other shooters.

And now, just to put the icing on the cake, we’re getting the richest political Cabinet in history. We’re already hearing messages from billionaires like, “You Poors are going to have to suffer,” and comments about how Joe Six-pack has it way too easy. Trump has admitted, now, that he isn’t going to bring the price of groceries down and he can’t guarantee his tariffs won’t raise prices. “Yeah, I lied. Whaddaya gonna do about it?” Hey, ask Luigi.

Consider this: So-called “Free Market Capitalism” has created a world in which people cheer when a capitalist is gunned down in the street – and all the while, there have been entities in place pushing back against the abuses of the Free Market. Now, the One Percent (and Putin) have managed to install the richest group of people in history, none of whom have even the slightest idea of what life is like for a working person. Corruption has mostly eliminated the restraints the held them back in the past – even the recent past.

Now? The brakes are off. The capitalists – the true capitalists, not the “supporters of capitalism” – are about to have their way with the economy without restraint. Do you think that’s going to be better or worse for the Small Folk? If we’re already at, “Yes, kill them!” and the capitalists are about to turn the screws even harder – and I guarantee they are – I expect blood.

To be clear, I don’t WANT blood. I wish every self-absorbed, self-serving, self-described “important” blowhard would get visits from three ghosts and see the error of their ways. But John Kennedy’s words are about to explode in front of us. The capitalists are making violent revolution inevitable…

Tales That Don’t Track…

by MyBaconPress

Is it true conservatives are ALREADY embracing the Biden economy as Trump’s own? The economic “glory days” they remember from Trump’s first term were the months at the beginning where America was still enjoying the benefits of Obama’s economy. The more Trump messed with it, the worse it got. No, MAGA won’t confess that. It’s just true. THEN, they just ignore the part where it crashed and burned because of his terrible handling of the pandemic. But that part is true, too.

So when Trump started running on how bad the economy is today, I thought enough people would know the difference to understand he was lying. They didn’t. It turns out, young people are still turning toward Trump and even though Trump hasn’t taken the oath of office he’ll ignore, I hear he’s already taking credit for the health of the economy, these days.

There’s a certain element that explains some of the young people’s support: dishonest media. For the last 40+ years, conservatives have been lying to people about what works and what doesn’t and why this and how come not that. Those of us who have completed a higher number of trips around the sun still remember Better America. No, it wasn’t perfect but it was FAR better than this bizarro crap.

So when I hear some talking head pretend there’s such a thing as “Supply Side Economics,” I just shake my head in disgust that people might do that to others. But young people? All they’ve ever heard is that supply side economics IS a thing. That same media works tirelessly to keep them from realizing the longer this supply side crap is in play, the harder their own life has become. There’s a direct relationship. But you have to understand the details to see the connection, and too many people are bored by the details.

I’ve never ONCE argued that the United States was in perfect, or even excellent shape. We’ve had problems since the start. (Largely because of small-minded people.) But we were addressing them, one by one. Maybe we would have made it, given enough time. I thought we were on a good track until Reagan.

But over the course of those 40+ years, young people have never heard correct information about how economies work and instead, have been treated to misinformation and disinformation of the far right. Now, we see the young people out there, supporting the destruction of the nation because they think it’s necessary. But it’s not their fault. They know not what they do…

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The right has been wrong, of course, on the economy. It’s in FAR better shape than they were willing to admit before the “election.” Yes, prices DID go up at an infuriating rate. But people who know understand; that wasn’t “inflation.” It was “greedflation.” Companies were raising prices because they could, and blaming inflation for doing it. But there hasn’t been any systemic inflation in quite some time. It’s all just greed.

Now Trump has offered them a new excuse to start raising prices again: his tariffs. He’s promising some BIG numbers – as high as 20% on things from most foreign countries. He’s threatening even HIGHER tariffs for stuff coming from China. ALL of this will raise prices and make it harder to make ends meet, not easier. AutoZone, Columbia Sportswear, and Stanley Black and Decker have all made clear that if the tariffs go into effect, their prices go up. It will be that way for most imports, which is most products in America, these days.

The excuse will be that the corporate costs went up due to the tariffs so they HAD to pass those costs along. But I’d bet a dollar the prices will go up FAR more than the tariffs will drive because corporate America will have a new excuse to gouge. And gouge they will…

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So, Musk and Neil DeGrasse-Tyson are in a bit of a dispute. Musk thinks he’s going to send humans to Mars. DeGrasse-Tyson thinks he’s not. DeGrasse-Tyson is speaking the truth. His observations are NOT political – they’re economic. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to pay for a project that takes humans to Mars. To do that just for the sake of doing it? When the hell have investors done that? If they don’t expect a financial return for their investment, they don’t invest. It’s pretty simple, really.

Musk says he knows it’s a bad investment so he’s not looking for investors. He’ll just cover the trip, himself. But you’ve STILL got to get people to buy in to the idea enough to actually go, knowing he doesn’t even plan to bring them home. You go. You shout “We MADE it!” You die. There’s probably no optics problem, there. There’s another, more important point, though.

The idea to go to Mars is at least partially driven by the damage we’re doing to Earth. Elon thinks he can just go to Mars and terraform that planet to better match THIS planet. Quick question; why not just fix THIS planet and skip all that other trouble? I mean, if he’s ready to turn Mars into Earth, couldn’t he turn Earth into Earth?

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Every time the gun argument heats up, sooner or later someone insists that guns don’t fire themselves. It can’t happen, we’re told. Apparently, it can. A man insists he had his Sig Sauer P320 holstered as he was coming down the stairs in his house when the gun just…fired. The gun shot the guy in the leg – all by itself. More than 100 other people have come forward to say the same thing; the gun goes off by itself.

Thoughts and prayers, right? Well, no. Not in this case. The guy has been awarded $11 million dollars. (Sig Sauer says they’ll appeal, of course.) His attorney said, and you can’t make this up, “This gun is a danger to gun owners and anyone within the vicinity of this gun.” Apparently, the guy should have bought one of those safe guns that represent no threat to anyone anywhere…

While I’m on the topic of guns? I have a personal theory. Dictators are, generally speaking, not too comfortable with an armed populace. There have already been a couple of less-than-credible-but-still-reported attempts to shoot our incoming dictator. How long do you suppose it’s going to be before a tiny little light goes on in his tiny little brain and he decides it’s too dangerous to him for the masses to have guns? I suspect that conservative sweetheart Donald J. Trump will, sooner or later, be the one who actually comes to “take people’s guns.”

At this point? It’s just a hunch…