Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sometimes life throws you a bone when the big things don’t go your way.

In this case, with the re-election of Donald J. Trump disappearing into a morass of opaque vote counting in Democratically controlled states, my consolation prize is making money on investments because of the expected Trump loss.

I wish I owned stock in gun manufacturers or ammunition makers, because their products are flying off shelves in stores across the country as right-minded individuals brace for government-sanctioned lawlessness.

Instead, my profits are coming from precious metals and the companies that mine them. Gold as I write is up $47 an ounce as reported on Kitco.com. Silver is up $1.19 an ounce. Mining stocks, or ETFs that hold them, such as GDX, are up big, too.

The investing world foresees virtually unlimited governmental largess moving forward. To say money will be printed is a dated metaphor. These days the bulk of “money” is created digitally. Saves a lot on paper and ink costs.

But the increase in the money supply is just as real. Those who back such reckless expansion of the money supply point to subdued inflation reports issued by the government – an interested party in keeping those numbers down – and say there is no rise in prices, hence no inflation.

They are missing the boat. Inflation is increasing the money supply. Rising prices is a symptom.

Our federal government, the most massive debtor on the planet, benefits immensely from artificially low consumer price inflation and hence artificially low interest rates it must pay on its debt.

This also allows the Feds to give people on Social Security paltry cost of living adjustments that are lower than the recipients’ expenses would indicate are merited.

If you shop for food, buy gasoline for your car, pay utilities, rent or property taxes, you know costs are going up.

But the huge price inflation is in financial assets. The stock markets are near all-time highs. Gold is near an all-time high. Yes, silver is only about half it’s all-time high, but hang on because that likely is coming. Many investment analysts peg silver as the most under-priced asset on the planet.

These investments all are benefiting from more money supply. For a time, the stock markets should continue to do so, too, but don’t stay too long because a reckoning is coming there.

I tend to agree with those liking silver, but make up your own mind. THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE!!!!

My post on this blog the other day noted that regardless of the election outcome, you move on and make the best of it.

I spent yesterday cleaning and waxing my most recent Mustang acquisition, then taking it for a bit of a cruise. There was time spent playing with the granddaughters and a nice walk with them in the woods.

By voting for Trump, by trying to point out to others why I would do so, I did what I could to promote his re-election.

I didn’t expect him to win, also as previously mentioned here and elsewhere, because of precisely what is happening. Democrats wanted election-day vote totals for Trump, particularly in key swing states, as a target for after-the-fact tabulations.

Anyone who has ever shot a gun knows you do better with a fixed target. The Democrats provided themselves with one and, surprise, surprise, surprise, they are hitting it.

In my younger years, I recall that by the end of Jimmy Carter’s term as president, you were hard-pressed to find anyone who admitted they voted for the guy. In this case I didn’t see that as an election having been stolen, but instead voters too ashamed by his weak-kneed performance to confess their culpability in elevating him to the office.

I just want all the Biden voters to remember their votes a few years hence. In this era of skin art, perhaps a letter “B” tattooed on their foreheads would be appropriate.

My sentiments on a Biden presidency – bad for the country but potentially good for me – are similar to my experience with the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare.

Common sense told me that given government subsidies for their prices, insurance companies would go whole hog on increases. And they did.

But you were supposed to be indifferent because of that government aid in the form of premium tax credits.

I obtained a health insurance license, not valid at the moment, because of seasonal work I did in the field after retiring from journalism, and so have some insight into this beyond my personal policy.

I know firsthand that companies across the board raise rates relentlessly, counting on ever-increasing premium tax credits to mute the actual out-of-pocket premium increases to subscribers. That happened in my case.

Twice I voted against the guy who was trying to put Obamacare into practice. Twice – with Trump – I voted for a guy promising to replace it with a better option. I did what I could do.

I’m off an ACA plan now, having moved on to Medicare. My wife remains on an ACA plan into next year.

Not only has Obamacare done huge damage to government finances, it also has hurt healthcare. I’m on my fourth Primary Care Physician under Obamacare as my doctors either have quit or retired due to bureaucratic idiocy with which they must deal.

I know of pathetically bad healthcare, including a cousin who nearly died when a hospital botched – twice – a sepsis diagnosis.

My wife told me the sad tale of a neighbor – since deceased – whose wife shared with her a story of neglect in his care at an area hospital in his last stay. He finally was brought home for his final days, where the family could take care of him themselves.

Biden is going to be tonic for investments that benefit from governmental handouts and the misallocation of resources and the raging price inflation those surely will produce. Even the so-called green push, with its emphasis on solar power and other “clean energy” will be a huge boost for silver (used in solar panels and various electronic applications) as well as rare earths.

It reminds me of the words of that great college basketball coach and politically incorrect philosopher Bobby Knight, who once advised: “If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

This election lives up the ubiquitous hype of being the most important of our times. That doesn’t mean, however, that life ends immediately for those whose candidate loses.

It’s an important thought to keep in mind on this election day as we vote and, later, await the results. It could be a long wait.

While we wait, and even after the wait ends and approximately one-half of the population is extremely disappointed, it’s important not to throw in the towel.

Continue to do the things you like doing. Enjoy family and friends. Do not allow bitter disappointment to drain the hope and happiness from your lives. Do not collapse into a puddle of goo, unable to cope with reality.

There will be another presidential election in four years. There will be mid-term elections in two. There is a chances down the line for the voters who will leave 2020 disappointed to have their opportunity to correct the perceived mistakes.

There are extreme sentiments that whichever direction this nation chooses in this election, it will be carved in stone ad infinitum.

I concede that a Democrat win will produce an adverse shift to the left and potential power-grabbing moves by socialists such as packing the Supreme Court or adding Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states to, presumably, add four leftist Senators. This would make it difficult for Conservatives ever again to exercise power on a national basis.

But I also know from studying history that when a significant portion of the population feels isolated and powerless, sometimes those people act in ways other than visiting the voting booth. Democrats would do well to keep that in mind.

Even as I write this, there are reports of credentialed Republican poll watchers being barred from voting precincts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Make no mistake, if Trump supporters are convinced this election was stolen from them, they will not go quietly into the night.

I voted early today – for Trump. I was somewhat pleased to show up at my polling place and find a crowd, but not an overwhelming wait. Similarly pleasing was the fact we actually had paper ballots that were scanned after their completion. But hard copies will exist in the event of a dispute.

This is much preferable to the touch-screen voting, with our votes potentially disappearing into the ether.

Before taking her afternoon nap today, Granddaughter No. 2 wanted to go for a ride in my Mustang convertible. It’s chilly, but sunny. I think when she awakens we will go for that ride.

I rewarded myself the past weekend by acquiring another Mustang, this a hardtop GT model.

In coming days life will be lived to the fullest in this household.

We will deal with the consequences of this election, whether favorable or unfavorable. Here’s hoping you can do the same.

One of the most oft-heard election misconceptions these days is that the outcome should be known in relatively quick fashion and most then will move on with their lives, putting aside hard feelings.

This is coming from otherwise intelligent people, as they pontificate on subjects ranging from economics, to sociology, to investing, to everyday living.

And it is so wrong on so many levels.

First off, the abundance of mail-in votes will delay things in many states, including my home state of Pennsylvania, which doesn’t process these votes until election day. Plus, Pennsylvania is allowing late mail-in votes to be counted, too.

Also it’s unwise in these times of structural breakdowns to expect anything to go smoothly, by which I mean we could have usually reliable states in terms of expeditiously counting votes degrade into slow returns.

Add in all the subplots, such as the so-called Red Mirage, in that Republicans voting in person could provide an early large lead for President Trump in states like Pennsylvania that the faceless – sometimes nameless –Democratic mail-in voters can and will overcome in the Democratic telling of the story.

Trump critics fear, very publicly, that he will claim victory based on Red Mirage results. This is unlikely, but the Biden camp and Trump camp both have made it known they are not into conceding quickly.

On the flip side, there are fears of a Blue Mirage, with states such as Florida and North Carolina that have been processing mail-in votes for weeks, having outsized Biden early vote totals based on the presumption that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.

Beyond the mirages, even in better times, election outcomes take longer to call when the races are close. The 2000, 2004 and 2016 elections each had no winner identifed until at least the next day.

There was a time when winners were projected, accurately and relatively quickly after the polls closed. In one such instance, a co-worker zipped out of work early to go home and watch the results.

He barely had time to rip open his bag of potato chips and decant his soda before it was all called. When he told us his tale of woe it amused his coworkers considering that this guy had a habit of rushing out the door and leaving others to make up for is absence, including once ostensibly having to dash home because his girlfriend couldn’t get the refrigerator open.

Even in the unlikely event a winner is quickly identified this time, anyone think the losing side is going to accept graciously the outcome is smoking some of the weed Democrats would dispense freely to anyone interested, for reasons ranging from recreational up through medical.

If you recall the sideshow that was hanging chads in 2000, imagine 2020 with debatable, illegible scrawls on mail-in ballots being challenged, or electronic voting machines coming up with apparently massaged totals, as been alleged as a distinct possibility in some published prognostications that cite the CIA.

In the past, such speculation as the last could have been dismissed. In the wake of years of FBI and CIA harassment of the Trump campaign and presidency, that no longer is the case.

Even if there is no wrongdoing in this election, an outcome neither side would be willing to stipulate to at this time, we’re going to have emotional responses from the more excitable types on both sides.

Riots in Blue cities and states are to be expected as opportunists, who likely voted for Biden, either celebrate a victory or protest a defeat.

More ardent Trump supporters aren’t likely to loot and pillage to celebrate a win for their guy. But they also are not likely to accept a defeat as legitimate.

These raw emotions only will fester, on both sides, if the post-election day machinations stretch into days, then weeks.

Questions will be asked over and over. Were polls wrong again? Were metaphorical ballot boxes stuffed? How many illegal aliens voted?

Peaceful transfer of power apparently is an amusing relic of the past. Republicans, as usual, will be blamed for this situation, but it was the Democrats who strung out the process in 2000, then refused to accept the outcome.

And it’s the Democrats who spent the past four years trying to undo the 2016 election results with what amounted to coup attempts.

If Trump supporters see their man declared the loser but aren’t willing to accept that result, well, they are no worse than the other side.

And for all the pap being spewed by the Biden campaign about uniting the country, don’t expect the quick-tempered guy who called Trump supporters “chumps” to be offering any olive branches should he win.

The wait for an election outcome will be a real life case of Waiting for Godot. Godot never did arrive in the play.

I admit to being stunned to find that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has endorsed Donald Trump for re-election as president.

To understand the historic nature of this, it is the first time that newspaper has endorsed a Republican for president since 1972.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, my former employer, endorsing a Republican I could understand, but the PG?

After reading the PG editorial, I find I could have written the piece, it so closely mirrors my sentiments.

It praised Trump’s economic leadership and noted the boom of domestic energy under him, plus pointed out as a positive Trump’s willingness to take on foreign nations who in the past have been free to prey on the American economy with implicit endorsement of prior administrations.

The PG also pointed out that critics of Trump’s handling of COVID-19 ignore the reality that the nation can’t hide in its basement – taking a page from Joe Biden’s playbook – and further decimate the economy.

The PG made the obligatory swipe of Trump’s behavior, wishing he was more dignified. However, the editorial made the important point that Trump has gotten things done.

Surprisingly, the endorsement also alluded to Joe Biden being “too old” and “fragile” for the job, and his VP Kamala Harris has given no indications she’s up to the job should Biden disappear.

On the other hand Trump, while no youngster, is noticeably more robust, campaigning with seemingly endless energy despite having been a COVID-19 patient not that long ago. And VP Mike Pence has demonstrated the ability to take over the presidency if necessary.

While the PG endorsement was unexpected, my hometown paper, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, continued its leftward lurch by endorsing Biden under the laughable headline of him being the choice to bring the country together. The endorsement reads like it was written by the Biden campaign.

By contrast, the PG didn’t try to portray Trump as a saint, but merely as the superior choice in this contest.

Give the PG points for journalistic integrity.

If you are to vote for Joe Biden in this presidential election, you must believe a lot of misrepresentations.

Begin with taxation. The Biden campaign vows to raise taxes, but not on any families making less than $400,000 a year.

But the math doesn’t work. Taxing the hated Top 1 Percent into oblivion, both by raising their income taxes and taxing their accumulated wealth, doesn’t put a dent in this nation’s over-spending habits, which only can be expected to increase under a Harris-Biden administration.

The United States budget deficit for fiscal year 2020, which ended at the conclusion of September, was $3.3 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) not some partisan organization.

We got there by spending $6.6 trillion on revenues of $3.3 trillion. Part of this unarguably was to be blamed on COVID-19 over-reactions, but even before that, the deficit was nearly $1 trillion in fiscal year 2019.

Spending by the federal government will only increase if the Democrats take control of all three branches of the government, witness Biden and his endorsement of AOC’s Green New Deal, House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s goal of bailing out all failing Blue states and cities with massive federal handouts, and various other promises of transferring money from the “wealthy” to the “non-wealthy.”

But we won’t even factor that likelihood of vastly increased spending by Democrats into our calculus. Let’s just presume continuing $3-trillion deficits.

In 2017, the last full tax year for which the Internal Revenue Service has provided tax breakdowns, the much-maligned “Top 1 Percent” of taxpayers earned $515,371 or more per year in Adjusted Gross Income.

So, if Biden is looking at a $400,000 cutoff, he’s dipping well below the Top 1 Percent. That’s just for starters in terms of half-truths and deceptions.

Already those Top 1 Percent paid more in taxes in the 2017 tax year than the BOTTOM 90 PERCENT COMBINED. The total tax contribution of that Top 1 Percent was $616 billion.

To clear the budget deficit annually these days, you’d need to raise the tax rate on the Top 1 Percent FIVE TIMES! That isn’t happening, even under the most draconian Biden proposals.

So, where would the revenue be made up? By raising taxes on the bulk of the nation, the middle class.

That’s the reality, which you will soon learn should Biden’s Blue Wave hit the shores in coming days, or weeks.

Another untruth of the Harris-Biden crowd is that Joe will bring us together. Note, they don’t say Kamala will bring us together, which is an uncharacteristic concession to reality.

Back to Joe Biden. Near the end of October, he fell into line with previous Democratic presidential candidates by stereotyping those who oppose him with a derogatory term. In Biden’s case, he called Trump supporters at an event in my home state of Pennsylvania “chumps.”

Hillary Clinton previously had called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” Elaborating on that, Clinton had said they are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it.”

Don’t forget Obama previously referring to those who would not kiss the hem of his robe as being “bitter” and “clinging to guns and religion.”

This sort of judgmental, holier-than-thou sentiment is shared by Democrats and will not result in bringing this country together no matter how many times this is promised and how many of the brain-dead among the voting populace are willing to believe it.

Along that line, we also are told ad nauseam that we can trust Biden, a man who changes his positions on key issues about as often as the average person changes underwear.

If you are to be willing to trust Biden, you must believe he really knew nothing about son Hunter profiting from the family name, as has been evidenced by a key whistleblower witness providing ample documentation.

You similarly must believe Biden will not be a slave to left-wing interests, even though his positions noticeably have skewed left as he sought first to put down the Bernie Sanders primary campaign, and then to solidify his base among a Democratic Party that is in a hard rush to the political left.

A cousin of mine, since gone to his eternal reward, used to muse about the general population. His take: About 10 percent get it and the other 90 percent stumble along in blissful ignorance.

He might have been a bit off in his percentages, but the sentiment rings true. An uncomfortably large percentage of the population cannot exercise critical thinking, cannot separate truth from deception, cannot make difficult choices without calculating how much they’re going to get out of it even at the expense of others.

On that base rests Biden’s campaign. Delusion. Denial. Divisiveness.

The Washington Post, the newspaper whose slogan is Democracy dies in darkness, is one of the many media outlets whose fingerprints are to be found on the light switch that’s been flipped off to darken the intellectual atmosphere.

Social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter are right there, too, making sure what they consider unacceptable news — and their definition for that is anything that harms the Democrats and Joe Biden — must be censored.

Current case in point: The ignoring of the Biden whistleblower implicating the Biden Family for its questionable business dealings with foreign nations.

But this is bigger than the current Hunter/Joe Biden news blackout. Don’t forget the New York Times, formerly the newspaper that proclaimed proudly that it contained All the news that’s fit to print, but now should admit, All the news that fits our narrative, we print.

A Times “journalist” has been decrying coverage of the riots in Philadelphia by those from less-woke outlets as attempting to misrepresent the situation. There are riots. There is looting. There are injuries. What exactly is being misrepresented?

In a more sane time, the charges of misrepresentation would have been applied to the iconic CNN shot of a reporter, in front of a background of flaming vehicles, reporting on Kenosha protests with the graphic screaming in large type “Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests.”

Why do they do this? It’s like the old joke: Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.

This is the Democrats’ country. Traditional conservatives are just marking time as an endangered species.

Democrats have taken control of the school systems, minting a never-ending supply of up-and-coming social justice warriors – poorly informed types who can’t name three Supreme Court justices or hold down jobs, but in a split-second can recognize perceived injustice and demonstrate en mass to show that they feel it to the core of their transfer-payment souls.

Democrats, regardless of which party is in power at the White House, hold the bulk of the bureaucratic posts in the federal government and use their numbers to throw sand in the gears of any Republican who would dare to challenge their un-elected power – witness the treatment of President Trump.

OK, so Democrats control schools, the bureaucracy (AKA The Swamp), social media and mainstream media outlets.

These people should never lose an election, yet somehow they manage to do just that, which calls into question their ability.

Recognizing that, if they win this one on a national level they will take great strides toward making their shortcomings meaningless by ramming through statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to provide more guaranteed electoral votes and senators to keep those pesky Republicans from ever again holding a majority in the Senate and thereby acting as a brake on runaway Democratic moves to socialize this nation.

Don’t forget the threats to pack the Supreme Court, and so guarantee the socialist rush would face no judicial limit on those plans.

Also Democrats will be quick to open immigration with little regulation, the better to boost the numbers of their base.

But the question isn’t why the Democrats do what they do, but rather why are they allowed to get away with it?

Why doesn’t the populace rise up and demand the shady past of Hunter Biden be investigated to see if it is as bad as it seems for Papa Joe, “The Big Guy.”?

The unfortunate answer is we’re moving inexorably toward the a sad state in which the majority of the United States citizenry doesn’t understand the value of sacrifice for the common good, putting country above self, doing the right thing not just what’s expedient.

Too many of our fellow citizens are softer than the Pillsbury Doughboy. They want to take the easy path both morally and financially.

Don’t ask them to follow traditional behavioral norms. If they want to dye their hair pink, sport more piercings than a pin cushion, tattoo every visible square inch of their flesh, then be offended that you might stare at them, that’s no problem.

People increasingly seem to believe if they lie, cheat or steal, it’s perfectly acceptable and if they should get caught, no punishment is justified.

If rather than joining the workforce they are content to wait for stimulus payments, earned income tax credits and any other manner of governmental largess, who are you to look askance at them?

We’re electing a president next week and filling federal and state legislatures, but what we’re really having is a referendum on the near-term future of this nation.

If Biden and his ilk prevail, this nation soon will be unrecognizable, and almost certainly irretrievable.

Election day looms in a week, although most agree the results won’t be available in the traditional time frame of that day or the next.

I’ll be voting for Trump – again – but I continue to fear what I have since the past December, that Democrats will prevail this time.

I base that assessment on the fact that the Democrats got sloppy four years ago, presuming Its My Turn Hillary Clinton would win in a walk, and didn’t pull out their traditional vote-harvesting heavy artillery.

This time they won’t be making that mistake. The COVID-19 over-reaction aids their cause by goosing the numbers of absentee voting, which are much more easily fudged.

Trump winning his first term was what will be viewed historically as the most monumental election upset in history. Understand that Trump didn’t just have to prevail over the Democratic machine, he also had to beat the Republican hierarchy which viewed him with almost equal disdain.

But Trump got it done.

And he still is trying to shock the world. Both my wife and I marveled at Trump’s vitality Tuesday, making multiple campaign stops to huge crowds.

Imagine a man of his age – 74 – possessing not only such great physical stamina, but also the mental toughness he continues to display.

He’s been beaten on for years by Democrats and the mainstream media. He is ridiculed, defamed and caricatured. Yet he keeps going with incredible vitality.

If Trump can pull this off again, it will be an even greater tour de force than his first win.

Trump should win if you go solely on credentials. He has kept many campaign promises. Until the economy was pulled down, mainly by Blue State governors and mayors shutting down their massive population centers in the name of virus containment, he had record economic numbers.

And then there is the question of his opponent, a guy who runs around forgetting who he’s running against. George? As in Bush? That’s what Biden said in an interview yesterday.

Biden has to make select appearances, close to home, to spare him exertion in his fragile physical and mental state. Yet he is to be entrusted with the demanding job of the presidency?

Of course that role likely will fall to his VP running mate Kamala Harris, who seems to be catching whatever ails Biden. Recently Harris had to ask a minion where she was before bellowing a hello to Cleveland.

Papa Biden, aka The Big Guy, has a lot of baggage, notably his family, which trades on the name. In a telling interview on Tucker Carlson’s FoxNews show, whistleblower Tony Bobulinski detailed how Joe Biden was very much familiar with deals Hunter and Jim Biden were trying to put together.

This despite repeated Sgt. Schultz-like denials from Joe Biden: “I know nothing, nothing!”

Bobulinski, a former serviceman, came forward out of disgust over being labeled a Russian asset as Democrats and the mainstream media attempt to protect Joe Biden and push him over the finish line.

That’s the one-size-fits-all Democratic response to any problem – blame the Russians. Those evil Russians helped Trump win the first time and now they’re trying to repeat history. Except Obama’s buddy Vlad Putin (remember the open mike gaffe when Obama said he’d have “more flexibility” to deal with Vlad after the election) says Joe Biden is not guilty of anything that Putin can see.

That’s high praise from a guy with a reputation of monetizing his political office.

And I think of that woman in the political ads running on television here in Pennsylvania, and presumably elsewhere, who says she voted for Trump before, but now will vote for Biden because – insert laugh track here – he can be trusted.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia is being looted because police had the temerity to shoot a man who was attempting to attack them with a knife.

I love the people saying the police should have used tasers. Have these people ever seen a perpetrator run right through a taser and attack the police? The police were under attack by a man acting irrationally and in possession of a deadly weapon.

Forgive me if I think I’d be reluctant to trust a taser to save my life in such a situation.

So the natural response is to loot athletic shoe and liquor stores.

Makes sense to me; about as much sense as voting for Biden.

In my neighborhood there’s an almost total one-to-one correspondence between Biden signs and the stereotypical members of the Democratic party circa 2020.

Once the Democratic party was the home of the blue collar worker, who toiled in private industry, for companies who were governed by the economic rules of a free economy.

If the workers did their jobs, if the company management did its job, there would be profit and the company would prosper. If either, or both failed, the companies were gone.

This shared incentive to be productive was healthy. Workers and management had skin in the game and so were motivated to do well. It wasn’t perfect, but it was preferable to what we have now.

Oh, how much this has changed.

The Democratic party now is founded on a base of public employees, people working for governments or other institutions such as schools and universities. These people function outside the real economy and so are free to make unrealistic compensation and pension demands and produce inferior products without penalty, witness our nation’s declining education ranking vs. the rest of the world.

Governmental agencies also are falling down on the job. Try dealing with the people at Social Security, the IRS, or Medicare. There are good people in these operations, but they seem to be the minority, overwhelmed by co-workers who show up and give half-baked effort secure in the knowledge there is no penalty.

Add in the Democratic party’s pandering to underclasses of every description, whose hands are out constantly for governmental largess the Democrats are only too willing to dispense – in exchange for their continued support at the polls.

This prospect was foreseen in a quote widely attributed to Founding Father Ben Franklin: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

Give the Democrats credit for recognizing the public sector would be ever-expanding, at the expense of the ever-shrinking private sector.

It’s a parallel to Gresham’s Law, wherein bad money drives out good. When the government went away from silver coinage, those coins rapidly disappeared from circulation, replaced by the silver-clad copper slugs of the present.

So it is that bad jobs, which survive even when they are overpaid and inefficient, drive out the good jobs that earn their keep, so to speak.

Republicans are on the right side of the economic equation, but they are losing the battle for the minds of the public due to the inescapable reality of human nature.

We are a modern-day Roman empire, distracting the masses with the bread and circuses of governmental handouts to distract them from the reality that this does not endure in the long run. As former Great Britain Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher correctly observed, socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money to spend.

The people in my neighborhood with Biden signs in their yards virtually all work for the government, work for schools, are retired from working for schools, or just aren’t working, period. Meanwhile, those with Trump signs work for private businesses, or are retired from same.

If you like the direction the country is headed, if you want the false security offered by drone-like life in the governmental womb, vote Biden.

On the other hand, should you be inclined to try to stem this trend and return the country to its former reliance on private business and the individual, you vote Trump.

The choice is that clear and against that backdrop, it’s ragingly mindboggling how anyone would find themselves straddling the undecided fence at this late date.

I got a laugh today – not a mirthful chuckle but more like a cynical smile rather than cry response – from a podcast listened to while I was walking.

It was about investing, and the interview subject has a web site which he took great pleasure in noting is free from factoring in politics.

This is a sad, sad person, who thinks politics don’t seep into every aspect of our existence.

You don’t think politics and the policies of the people we elect affect investments and the economy? Well, you are naive at best and I question the worth of your investment advice.

If Joe Biden is elected and taxes are raised as he has promised, regulation is increased as he has promised, governmental spending is increased as he has promised, you think that will have no impact on the economy or your investments?

Although the Democrats have crammed a muzzle squarely into the jaws of the AOC crowd, no doubt telling them just to shut up for now and after the election, the sky’s the limit, beware of the immense governmental spending frenzy we can expect in the attempt to implement the Green New Deal.

Already California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order banning the sale of new gasoline powered vehicles in his state by 2035.

As an aside, don’t you love how those on the left applaud such executive orders, or those of former President Barack Hussein Obama, but howl in protest when current President Donald John Trump wields the executive pen?

Back to the matter of banning sales of traditional internal combustion cars, I’m skeptical of the perceived benefit.

The electric-car people neatly ignore the effect all that increased demand for electricity to recharge these cars will have on troubled power systems, such as California’s.

Already burdened by brownouts and blackouts, the California grid would need massive upgrade and overhaul to meet the demand.

The Green types also conveniently ignore that while the electric cars themselves may reduce emissions, what about the plants that produce the electricity? What about the pollution from mining the necessary metals and rare earth elements necessary for electric cars?

Even if this is done outside California or the United States, it still affects world climate and, as the Kum ba yah crowd loves to point out, we’re all in this together.

What do we do with all those batteries when their life cycle is complete? We’re not going to be able merely to discard them into current landfills.

You will hear the recycling people chime in here. But the dirty secret is most recycling is not truly cost-efficient and in a sort of reverse negative loop, the more people recycle, the more recycled product there is and the lower the price received for those doing the recycling.

We have had this happen in my area for aluminum, plastic, glass, etc. Municipalities have gotten out of the recycling game because it doesn’t make economic sense.

Add in that the next major volcanic eruption around the world will spew more gaseous pollution into the air than all those California gasoline-powered cars will, likely in a year.

Maybe Newsom can sign an executive order banning volcanoes.

This is a typical Liberal contradiction. They want to dream of world peace, prosperity for all and an abundance of other ideals, but they cannot come up with practical ways to accomplish those goals.

Their problems are twofold: First, they have set their bar too high in their wishes and, second, they are unwilling to recognize that reality.

Unfortunately, it’s raining as I write this, or I’d go out and fire up my Mustang convertible to go cruising in Newsom’s honor.

I guess I’m left to peruse the online ads for yet another Mustang, this hopefully to be a more powerful gasoline-gulping behemoth that would horrify Newsom and his ilk.

The apologists for Joe Biden, and they are many, are hard afoot to explain away his latest verbal gaffe.

This time Uncle Joe, speaking to a friendly podcast, blurted out “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.

Some have labeled it a Freudian slip. Or maybe it was just another of Joe’s abundance of senior moments.

It also could be he was merely backing up my contention for the past year or so, that being the Democrats won’t be caught with their pantsuits down – figuratively speaking – like they were in the 2016 election when they presumed Hillary would sweep to victory without them having to deploy any of what we will call their customary vote enhancement programs.

Democrats won’t let that happen again. Witness efforts to broaden opportunities for faceless people to vote without having to turn up at the polls.

Witness reports of multiple ballot requests in the same name.

Witness efforts to loosen regulations to allow these absentee ballots to be counted even if they are not mailed in time, or do not follow the rules such as requiring legitimate signatures to match the voters’ names.

Make no mistake, the Democrats know they have been forced into running a weak candidate and he’s going to need to be dragged across the finish line.

Biden’s record is checkered at best, both in terms of ethics and consistency. He now has come clean on his goal of eliminating fossil fuels. A Biden election victory would mean we would have the Green New Deal moving full-speed ahead with its estimated $93 trillion pricetag over the next decade.