kaizen
what's
been floating my boat lately:
"How fortunate for governments
that the people they administer don't think."
-Hitler-
"Only two things are
infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the
former."
-Albert Einstein-
5/3/21 (20:57)
Been looking for
a warehouse space for a while now. The goal is to have all our work and
home stuff in one space so 1) we don't have to keep paying for storage
costs (which go up every few months) 2) have everything in one secure place
3) have everything in one place so it's easier for Meryl to manage her
staging inventory 4) have a bigger space for my tools/materials 5) move
so we don't have to be around our annoying neighbors 6) get a bit closer
to the amenities we like to be around. Can't recall if I've written about
this here yet. The long and short of it is that we've been looking for
a while. Found a place a few months ago that ticked all the boxes, but
it had two tenants so that would have been a challenge and it sold to someone
else anyway so... Now we've found another place, but it's 21,000 sf and
way more expensive than we can afford, but, if we rent out portions of
it, and get it for well below asking price, then it gets to a place that's
doable. Those are big ifs so we'll see. Meryl needs about 2000 sf for her
inventory and I'd like the same for my materials and shop space. The living
space could be 1500 sf and that would be good enough. We would need to
get our office in there somewhere as well.
One of the unintended
consequences of the "green economy" (pot) is that it has driven up the
cost of any warehouse type space quite a bit. This one may not be affected
by that, though, since it's near a school and they tend to be wary of that.
Crypto has been
really big the last six months or so. Wish I had gotten into it earlier.
The only two players that I see as solid at this point are ETH and BTC.
BTC has gone up like 500% in the last year and ETH has gone up 1.5k%
in that time. BTC I see less as an alternative to cash and more as an alternative
to gold. It's a store of value and hedge against inflation. ETH is potentially
the platform for the future. The problem with both of them is that valuation
is tough to justify since it's such a new market. I think people are still
figuring it out. My (small) stake in ETH has doubled since I went in. Obviously
I wish I had put in everything with returns like that in such a short time
period.
Re: valuation,
I think this is the tough point with all crypto. Ultimately it's a supply
and demand thing of course, but that's not saying much. My hunch is that
ETH is much more likely to go up 10x in 10 years than it is to go down
10x in that time. In that way, the valuation seems to be on the side of
buying. I think there are more things that could drive the cost up than
down. Unlike BTC, ETH is dynamic and holds real value beyond a store of
value since it's a platform for potentially game changing things. Hopefully
those things come to fruition and it becomes the game changer that people
think it could be.
I have been going
on and on about inflation and MMT for a while now and it's one of those
things where I'll either be wrong or I'll be wrong until I'm right. I still
just don't see how the government can pump so much money into the economy
without a negative consequence. I don't know where/how it will all go wrong,
but I think it has to. The point of these black swan type events is that
you don't see them coming. Economists will measure inflation like they
always have and everything will look fine and then the shit will hit the
fan and they'll realize there was a blind spot somewhere and they'll start
measuring that for next time.
One interesting
possibility is that shortages (like we're seeing in everything from
ketchup
packets to chlorine)
could be one manifestation of inflation. Where we don't have shortages
we have straight up price increases like lumber, copper, metal, and more.
Ultimately, I just don't believe the super genius MMT folks.
In contradictory news, I've been trying
to have an abundance mindset lately, as opposed to a scarcity mindset.
In my work I've always worried about the next job and trying to get whatever
job opportunity is in front of me because I don't know if tomorrow will
bring another job. It's one of the worst things about running your own
business and part of the reason that I think business owners are a bit
more conservative. They are more in tune with the natural law of the wild
and I think that aligns more with at a conservative mindset. That is, there
are no guarantees in life. Be happy with what you have. Do the responsible
thing and save because a rainy day could always be around the corner. When
you are an employee, your mindset is very different. You have much more
security. Your thoughts aren't about where your next paycheck (customer)
is coming from, it's about how your job could offer more benefits, etc.
I think the employee mindset is more aligned with the left and the employer
mindset is more aligned with the right. Couple the mindset shift with things
like writing a check every quarter to the government (as opposed to automatic
deductions every two weeks...which you don't even really see anymore because
of auto deposit) and it's no wonder that the self-employed tend to skew
conservative. Of course there's also self-selection bias there....maybe
you're less likely to go out on your own if you have a leftist mindset
in the first place. It's also interesting that some of the most secure
people in their positions are tenured college faculty and they also tend
to be very highly Democratic. Hmm.
Anyway, I've been trying to shift my
mindset from one of worrying about where the next customer is coming from,
to one of abundance...thinking the best of future business prospects, rather
than the worst. We've kept busy regardless of how many people we've had
- from 0 to 4 people working under me in the field and haven't done any
marketing for years, so maybe it's time to worry less about how many jobs
are out there. Instead, maybe we should worry about finding the jobs we
want, rather than just filling the calendar. We'll see how that goes and
if I can be right about the macroeconomic situation and also not foolish
to believe that this new mindset is a good way to run a business.
I remember voting yes on the high speed
rail proposition in 2007-ish when it was on the ballot. My thinking was
1) it's going to take longer and cost more than they say, but 2) it'll
be great when it's done anyway. It's increasingly looking like I was wrong
on that second point and I underestimated just how much #1 was going to
be true. This is the kind of thing that I think Democrats, Democrat apologists,
and big government allies have to answer to. California is the natural
result of the policies that those people support and high speed rail is
one of those programs that those people love (including me at one time).
And yet here we are. It's 10+ years in the making and we have essentially
nothing to show for it. At some point you need to be able to point to things
that work if you're going to be an ally for a certain position. So, if
you have Democratic rule in a city or state for 20-50 years like it is
in CA and many large cities, and yet you have rampant homelessness, crime,
income inequality, etc. then your ideas have to answer to that. Of course
it goes for the other side as well, but you already knew that part.
Somewhere along the way there came this
idea that if you can make it in NYC you can make it anywhere. I think it
would be much harder to make it in most rural locations than in NYC. Maybe
at one point NYC didn't have a robust social safety net. Maybe it was more
edgy and dangerous. But these days it's got every resource imaginable and
it's easier than ever to access those resources because of the internet.
I'd argue that NYC is one of the easiest places to "make it" in the country.
Sure, it's expensive, but the minimum wage is high and there are just a
million opportunities. If you burn one bridge you've got a million other
options. If you become disabled then there are resources to help and a
million other jobs you can still do if you have the wherewithal. I'd just
rather be a poor black kid with below average intelligence in NYC than
in rural Alabama. That already disadvantaged kid would definitely be able
to make a living in NYC if he worked hard. The same is not true in rural
AL. Look into the rural vs. urban divide and you'll see this is a big issue
in a lot of ways.
Apparently there are many anti-rioting
laws that are being proposed by Republicans. They run the gamut from defining
riots to have an add-on penalty for rioting while doing some other crime.
On the Media podcast had their panties in a bunch over this, as did several
other outlets. The main arguments seemed to be that it was a violation
of the first amendment and that there's no need to add a riot designation
to bolster pre-existing laws that already outline illegal behavior like
assault or vandalism. They complained that it was too nebulous and subjective.
I find this second point to be pretty hilarious since these are the same
people who are so adamant about hate crime laws being necessary.
What's the deal with hate crimes? Why
do we need a separate designation for intent behind an already illegal
action? If I beat someone up should it matter that I'm doing it because
I don't like their religion? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If I
beat someone up to take their money and then I call them a kike does that
make it worse? Plus, it gets into a dicey area about intent and that seems
really tough to ajudicate. I think I'm going to stay consistent on this
one - we don't need anti-riot add ons anymore than we need hate crime add-ons.
I listened to Chuck Schumer on the Ezra
Klein podcast the other day. He has an imaginary middle class couple that
he always thinks about when he's thinking about new legislation or current
economic trends, etc. This is very nice of him to think about the middle
class, however it's absolutely hilarious that he needs to concoct a fictional
couple and come up with a story about them and think about what they might
think about laws he's thinking about passing. He has access to the actual
opinions of thousands of actual middle class couples and yet he finds himself
making up fake ones and inferring their opinions based upon whatever is
in his head at the time. I mean, you can't make this shit up. The guy is
legitimately retarded. Just have some middle class friends for once in
your life, Chuck. Or maybe ask a constituent what they're thinking once
in a while for fuck's sake.
Democrats support George W. Bush at 51%
today. It was 11% when he left office. What the hell is wrong with these
people? W may have been worse than Trump, but they have a short memory.
The guy was dog shit in a suit. Yeah, he danced with Michelle Obama or
whatever, BFD. He's basically a mass murderer for fuck's sake.
Reply All is a good podcast overall,
but it's become a woke fiasco the last year or so. Most recently it was
in the news because it turned out they're not as woke as they claim and
they were doing a story on another toxic workplace culture when it was
revealed that maybe they shouldn't be ones to talk. What a mess. Live by
the sword, die by the sword.
Have you heard of the problem
solvers caucus in congress? Probably not. You have to ask yourself
why you haven't or, if you have, why you haven't heard about it more. This
is why the media is complicit in the downfall of our society and worse
than W or Trump or Koch or Mercer or any of the rest of the individual
morons you may hate. Instead of focusing on people who are working to solve
issues in a bipartisan way, you hear about Schumer wearing Kente cloth
and McConnell being a douche bag. The media could focus on the efforts
of these 56 members for an entire week, but instead they've historically
been happier to parse Trump's latest tweet from the toilet. The mainstream
media are worthless.
An issue that comes up every once in
a while is the issue of free tampons. As part of a public toilet situation
I think it makes sense. You give free TP, so it would be nice to give free
tampons and pads as well. There's precedent and it makes sense. Same could
be said for poor women in shelters, for example. However, as a matter of
public policy to just pay for tampons makes no sense to me whatsoever.
It smacks of the kind of "more free shit" thinking that we get these days.
Under what logic does it make sense to provide free tampons to women (er,
sorry, I mean people who menstruate)? An aside about this - because some
trans activists are very particular, this is legitimately how we are supposed
to talk about this issue. Not all women menstruate - and we're not just
talking about menopausal women - we're talking about women who were born
with dicks who can't menstruate, so let's be sensitive. No, I'm not making
this up, I'm not that creative. Anyway, what is the precedent or analog
for paying for tampons? I just don't see it. We don't pay for TP and everyone
uses that. We do pay for free condoms and needles so maybe you could say
that? I'm not sure where the free stuff ends. This is the slippery slope
(remember, it's not a fallacy). This
is something people actually want and think they deserve for simply
existing.
There has to be a test to determine what
gets paid for and what doesn't. If we do it on a case by case basis then
we'll just slowly work our way down the line paying for everything until
the political contingents get so small that they don't have any pull. So
what's the test? If you say that tampons should be free because without
tampons there's a public health crisis then TP has to be next. And toothpaste.
And toothbrushes. And band-aids. And and and...At some point there have
to be women willing to stand up and say "no thanks, I can take care of
myself thank you very much." To do otherwise is to be anti-feminist in
my view. Women are so weak and unable to care for themselves that they
need a provider. It used to be their dad or husband and now it's Uncle
Sam. Is that what we want?
Since I'm digging my grave on the women
vs. men front today, I may as well continue.
You can't say that men are rapacious
and brutal capitalists on the one hand and then complain that women make
less overall. If men are brutal capitalists who have less empathy and are
implicitly worse people, but better capitalists then that's the cost of
making more money. In this system (according to the people who make these
claims) the men are making more money because of their attributes and capitalism.
If you want women to make more then have them adopt the same attributes.
You can't sit on your high horse and claim moral superiority and be virtuous,
but also make the same money. Life is about trade offs.
I think I've fleshed this out before,
but suffice it to say that the gender wage gap that Obama talks about ("women
make 22% less than men for the same work") is an utter lie. The same work
wage gap is in the single digits depending upon what your source is. And
the gap is almost entirely a result of having kids. You can see this, in
part, by looking at lesbians who don't take a year off to have kids, for
example. But it's a useful lie so the narrative continues.
If I'm steel manning the argument I'd
say that capitalism doesn't leave room for things like raising kids and
that disproportionately hurts women (mostly because of biology and individual
decisions, but still) so capitalism needs to be reformed to make that better.
Unfortunately it's harder to have the discussion when the one being proffered
instead is based on lies.
In the last year you've probably heard
more about Tuskegee than normal. Here's how the conversation goes, and
I've heard it at least a dozen times on NPR type programs: "The vaccine
rollout is going well, but we really need to reach out to Black communities
which are vaccine hesitant, and rightfully so because of Tuskegee and things
like that." I've heard an argument almost exactly like this many times
by now. They always mention Tuskegee and they never mention another example
of why the Black community is justifiably vaccine hesitant. One woman mentioned
in an interview that her doctors didn't take her seriously, but that's
the closest I've heard to fleshing out the "and things like Tuskegee" part
of the argument. So, if you know of other cases like Tuskegee, let me know.
I have very little faith in the government so I wouldn't doubt it, but
it's odd that they never mention anything else.
Speaking of Tuskegee...the reason this
is so egregious is that the government doctors had a policy of using Black
people for their experiments for so many years. It was a total of 600 men.
It was a failure of the medical community and the government. But black
men in particular are seen as disposable so they did what they did. Another
example of men being disposable is the Titanic. If you were a 3rd class
passenger and female you have a 50/50 chance of living (92 died, 87 lived).
If you were a 3rd class male passenger then the ratio was a wee bit worse
(389 died, 62 lived). Overall, 1345 men died out of 1669, that's 80.5%
of men died vs. 25.6% of women. The stats I have don't break the children
down by gender for some reason. Tragically 49 of 115 children died. 1st
class 137 out of 141 women lived. 1st class 56 out of 174 men lived. So,
regardless of class, men were much more likely to die.
Meryl got her first shot of the vaccine
the other day, I still haven't.
78% of people hospitalized or dead from
COVID were obese or overweight. Hm, I wonder if this has anything to do
with our poor outcomes relative to other countries.
What are the chances somebody with COVID
must be hospitalized? Think about it for a minute zero? 1-5%? 6-10%? 11-19%?
20-49%? 50% and up? Here's where we get to see how accurate your perception
is of the issue. How does the media you consume shape your answer here
and if you get this wrong are you going to demand better from your media
sources? The answer is 1-5%. 41% of Democrats answered 50% and up. 28%
of Democrats answered 20-49%. So, 69% of Democrats thought it was 4-10+
times worse than it actually is. 10% of Democrats got the answer right.
26% of Republicans got the answer right. Why? Because Democrats are the
party of science? Oops. Because Republicans are so much smarter than Democrats?
No, because of the news they consume.
I'm fortunate to remember this same kind
of misinformation coming around 9/11 when Republicans were asked questions
about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, etc. They all watched FOX and
so they were horribly misinformed. Now, the shoe is on the other foot.
Garbage in, garbage out. Unless you were
close on that question, I don't think you can be at all smug. We should
all have some humility even though most of us leftists were laughing at
the idiots 17 year ago who didn't know the basic answers about Iraq and
WMD.
George Floyd has a bunch of stuff named
after him now apparently. I mean...he didn't really do anything. Are we
allowed to be honest about the guy? He wasn't a saint. He didn't seek to
be a martyr. He didn't stand up against oppression or anything. He was
tweaking out and he died because a cop (at least one) was a piece of shit
who was posturing for the crowd. I don't see how that makes you worthy
of having a town square (among other things) named after you. It's the
ultimate sign in a time when being a victim is a badge of honor - get a
landmark named after you for no reason other than you were victimized by
someone. I'm not a fan.
I see the same sort of sentiment in other
places as well. Saw a sign the other day that said we should never forget
1/6/2021. Why? 9/11, never forget. Why do we want to remember the times
when something bad happened? Importantly, it's not that we're remembering
our reaction to the thing...it's remembering the thing itself. Remembering
the Alamo at least was remembering how the few fought against the many.
It's inspirational on some level. But remembering 1/6/21 or 9/11? Remember
that time you got punched in the dick and were crying on the sidewalk for
10 minutes! Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
I used to like Ellen Page a lot. But
now I just see her as a fraud or, at best, someone who is mentally unwell.
When she came out on Ellen's show she claimed to be so happy and she could
finally be who she is and all that. Everyone pretty much knew it already,
but whatever, you're gay and out - good for you. Now she says she's a boy
and claims she's known she was a boy since age 5. In the Oprah interview
she really comes off as supremely unhappy and unwell still. I think this
is going to be a Kirstie Alley type situation where she's up and down -
not with her weight, but with her mental wellness and overall happiness.
I don't see good things in the future.
One proposed fix to the SCOTUS is to
implement term limits for SC justices. If people really believe in this
idea then they should try to get it passed when Breyer retires under Biden's
administration (likely this year). Otherwise you're just a bullshit artist.
Either it's a good enough idea to start now or it's just bullshit. "Hey
guys I think we should jump off this bridge, but you guys should do it
first." vs. "Hey guys I think we should jump off this bridge and I'll be
the first to do it."
Same goes for the unity talk. You can't
give a victory speech and call for unity. Of course the winner wants everyone
to unite behind him/her. Do it when you lose. Lose to Trump and say, hey
he's our president and I look forward to working with the guy. Otherwise
it's just more bullshit talk from a bunch of phonies.
5/1/21 (14:23)
This is an old
one, but it may be my favorite meme.
Copyright
1998,
1999,2000,
2001,
2002,
2003,
2004,
2005,
2006,
2007,
2008,2009,
2010,
2011,
2012,
2013,
2014,
2015,
2016,
2017,
2018,
2019,
2020,
& 2021 by me.
everything
on here is my opinion, so don't sue me.