mellowtigger | a hodgepodge for Moody Monday (Reply)

So many hot topics, so little time.

music: I've said repeatedly that I think Trump is suffering from untreated syphilis. I'm still holding to that theory. I keep expecting to see pockmarks of dissolving flesh soon, but he keeps getting his skin covered up with makeup or bandages. It's only a matter of time, though. Meanwhile, I'm making a song playlist for that special day that must arrive eventually. Do you have any songs to recommend for this list (YouTube)?

job: Today at work was more than usual. I was late (30 minutes) going to lunch, and I was late (45 minutes) clocking out. I need to leave early sometime this week, so I don't have overtime to report.

stockpile: I've warned before that you need to buy what you can now, while you can. I reiterate that message now.

Click to read a list of things I expect to decrease in availability or value...

Computing devices (laptop, tablets, consoles, phones) will all get more expensive as supply chain problems get worse throughout the year. Between data center construction and Middle East raw resource disruptions (even helium), the supply chain has more shocks in store as continuing waves of problems descend. Plus whatever stupid trade war that Trump will inevitably declare on his next whim. I have a spare laptop I bought last year, and I have a Fairphone as a phone backup.
Food will get more expensive for similar reasons. ICE deportations affect the labor for agriculture, climate change is messing with pollination, disease, and production, and fuel disruptions will affects costs and availability for everything. Have powdered/dry food on hand, just in case. I have a few months of that available.
Medicine will not necessarily be available to you at any price. Do you have any way of stocking up on supplies or finding a non-USA source of the medication? I have a 90-day backup for my blood pressure pills. Thankfully, that's the only pharmaceutical that I really require at this time. I've got a few months of nasal sprays that I need for allergies too.
Money will lose value, for anyone with US dollars. Debt, market manipulation, and corruption must take a toll. I've started thinking of Fridays as "market manipulation day", since this Republican administration usually picks that day to announce something important as the stock market closes. Trump and his cronies are siphoning funds from everyone else on both the swing up and the swing down on stock pricing, even on prediction markets and cryptocurrency. Selig says he'll crack down on the corruption, but we'll see if Trump does anything to protect Don Jr. More countries are using Yuan to purchase oil or switching to renewables due to the Iran war, so they don't have to buy oil at all. I don't imagine any way that the dollar maintains its value. When Trump finally leaves the USA (Brazil?), as he and his ilk make their last effort to escape consequences, they'll have their wealth in both tangible or intangible resources that survive stock and dollar crashes better than our resources will. Spend it on long-term goods while you can.

libertarianism: This topic deserves a whole post of its own, but I think I finally have the thing that will help the USA snap out of this terrible decades-long devotion to neoliberal economics. It's been happening ever since the Powell memo of 1971, since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978 to stop USA's transition to social democracy, and since 1980 when Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign promoting so-called trickle-down economics (or "voodoo economics" to quote another former President). Go to whichever AI chatbot you can access, and ask it this particular question:

"Use the Price equation to model the paradox of tolerance. What conditions (like detection of defectors and removal of non-cooperative actors) are required to make that comparison accurate."

I want to delve farther into its answer. It seems to call out the ills of libertarian politics and neoliberal economics. The people demolishing our detection, reporting, intervention, and funding institutions know exactly what they're trying to accomplish. It's like they already understand the Price equation but have sided with demons to create perpetual cruelty in a libertarian hellscape instead of choosing the other option offered by the equation. They're succeeding so far, and this AI answer might help us defend attempts to restore/rebuild community, using incontrovertible math as justification.

I'm reminded of an idea I had before that our government should make it easy for citizens to do good things, and maybe that should be the next great push in governance goals. I have to write more about what's needed as we begin the restoration of the USA and its foundational ideals.

The beginning is near. Are you preparing?