From the AP:
Biden has long-term inflation plan, but voter patience short
President Joe Biden came into office with a plan to fix inflation — just not the particular inflationary problem that the country now faces.
His belief is that a cluster of companies control too many industries, which reduces competition for both customers and workers. That leads to higher prices and lower wages in what the White House says is an average cost of $5,000 annually for U.S. families. Biden is now trying to remedy the situation with 72 distinct initiatives — everything from new rules for cell phone repairs to regulations on meatpacking to more merger reviews.
“The dynamics of the modern American economy — the increased consolidation and lack of competition — has distorted market incentives in important ways,” said Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council. “The president gave us the direction that he wanted us to come back and say what could we do to address this issue of consolidation across industries in a way that would be durable.”
But even administration officials acknowledge that the initiatives outlined by the president’s seven-month-old competition council aren’t designed to quickly stop the 7.5% inflation that’s frustrating Americans and damaging Biden’s popularity. Furthermore, business groups dispute the fundamental premise that competition has faded within the U.S. economy and they are prepared to challenge the administration’s new initiatives in court.
“It will strangle economic growth,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Ironically, what this will do is actually lead to more inflation.”
The Eastern world, it is explodin’
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?
Can’t you feel the fear that I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy
But you tell me over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’
I’m sittin’ here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
Ah, you may leave here for four days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor but don’t forget to say grace
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend
You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
57 years ago and still spot on
It’s transitory ……
Music for the Lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8S8gWBN9yE
No way, Barry McGuire version
Either way, you can pretty much go line by line in that song and find parallels.
The average size of a new mortgage just set a record, as home prices continue to climb
Homebuyers are facing one of the priciest housing markets in history, and that means they need larger mortgages than ever before. While mortgage demand is falling, due to rising interest rates, the size of the average purchase loan application just set a record.
Mortgage applications to buy a home fell 1% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Volume was 7% lower than the same week one year ago.
“Purchase applications saw a modest decline over the week, with government purchase applications accounting for most of the decrease,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist. “Prospective buyers still face elevated sales prices in addition to higher mortgage rates. The heavier mix of conventional applications again contributed to another record average loan size at $453,000.”
A little more modern interpretation of events from Billy Joel.
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, “The King and I”, and “The Catcher in the Rye”
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, “Rock Around the Clock”
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai”
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, “Stranger in a Strange Land”
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
“Lawrence of Arabia”, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK – blown away, what else do I have to say?
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
“Wheel of Fortune”, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can’t take it anymore
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning, since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it
As a child of the cold war when this song came out in 1989 it reminded me of a theme in history, religion and music “was and always will be”. No matter how crazy times may seem today, they have always been crazy and will continue to be crazy.
I was reminded last week of these signs when Putin made his nuclear threat over NATO and Ukraine. We used to see them all over as kids walking around the Bronx, no idea what they meant until we got older and learned about ICBMs and how little time we had to get into a shelter.
https://wgbh.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/eb7a96e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1704×929+0+172/resize/990×540!/format/jpg/quality/70/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn-news.wgbh.org%2Fs3fs-public%2Fpicture.jpg
Less than a month to a 7pm sunset, looking forward to it.
I was reminded last week of these signs last week, after Putin made his Nuclear threat over Ukraine and NATO invoking Article 5. We would see them everywhere in the Bronx but had no idea what they meant that we had minutes to get into one if the sirens sounded until we got older.
https://tinyurl.com/3zsjtzex
One thing about Putin he is a good actor. He had somehow convinced Yeltsin and his inner circle in short time that he was a liberal and a democrat who wanted to continue market reforms in Russia, hence is appointment out of nowhere to Prime Minister in August 1999 and only a few months later Yeltsin resigned and left him completely in charge to shape Russia’s future.
A dog house from Costa Rica that was hit by a meteorite is to be sold at auction by Christie’s – with the ramshackle kennel expected to fetch $300,000.
The meteorite hit the four-foot-high kennel in April 2019 – while the startled inhabitant, a German Shepherd named Roky, was inside.
He was unharmed when the space debris smashed through his tin roof.
The family, who live in the rain forest of North Central Costa Rica, in the city of Aguas Zarcas, preserved the wood and tin structure and are now selling it.
His belief is that a cluster of companies control too many industries, which reduces competition for both customers and workers. Biden is now trying to remedy the situation with 72 distinct initiatives — everything from new rules for cell phone repairs to regulations on meatpacking to more merger reviews.
I’ll take “Excerpts from the Manifesto” for $500, Alex.
cell phone repairs lol….
Sure, like the average person has the equipment to change a broken charge port on an iPhone.
Juice,
You are joking, right??
I have pulled my phones apart and replaced batteries, screens, etc. This is what they are talking about. Plus the third party companies in the malls that do this, then have the phone locked out with controlling software.
And John Deere. Well, if there is no “redneck” in you I get it.
Making it so farmers can’t repair their own machines.
And cars. I have a car that the software doesn’t allow me to switch between two sets of tire pressure monitors. You have to pay the dealer a hundred bucks if you want the light turned off when you switch over to winter tires, then a second hundred when you switch back.
You buy the da m n car, you should own the software in it as well. And why is it that I have to have that lousy proprietary software based head unit? If you keep a car a long time-it’s like having a cell phone from 20 years ago jammed into your dash. Sure on some cars you can replace with aftermarket, but others it’s more of an issue.
I miss the phones where you could just take the cover off and replace the battery.
You don’t think that change was an accident do you?
More people need new batteries on their phones vs the amount that have dropped one in the toilet.
Gary thinks a man i fest o is a naked pile of gay republicans
with tRuMp giving the golden shower.
Sure, like the average person has the equipment to change a broken charge port on an iPhone.
No difference from doing the distributor cap, wires, and timing on your ’67 Chevelle.
We’re reviewing the proposed documents that were recently released surrounding competition in the liquor industry with our lobbyist now. Suspect most of this shit was written by big business lobbyists to protect their stranglehold on the industry. No surprise there.
Speaking of, the NJ ABC is looking to unilaterally enact a regulation to allow Grubhub and Doordash to deliver alcohol in NJ, we caught word of this in Trenton. This is the kind of thing that should really go through the statehouse.
Great, right?
Except it will specifically exclude NJ’s craft alcohol producers, breweries, distilleries, wineries. NJ’s large distributors already killed the potential for NJ distilleries to deliver, even though breweries and wineries somehow got that benefit.
Guess who is behind it?
99% of the things that happen in the statehouse are driven by lobbyists.
Also, fun times at the shore this year. NJ’s police can no longer stop those under 21 for suspicion of alcohol or drugs. In fact, police can be charged with a civil rights violation if they do. Word from the NJ police associations is that officers will opt to avoid any engagement since the potential repercussions are huge, and those under 21 CAN NOT BE charged or arrested anyway. However, ABC made it abundantly clear, establishments that serve underage patrons, knowingly or not, will feel the full force of the law, including having staff arrested on site.
Legislation and regulation.
Bought and paid for democracy in action. Just like the congresscritters that are trying to legislate the pay of nurses.
FREE DUMB.
You know what FRee Dumb is? Thinking if you choose a Democrap or Repuke over the other. Cause while they are having se x with each other you are on the outside.
It’s good cop, bad cop.
Repubs get a hard on when a democrap is arrested.
Democraps get a hard on when a repub is arrested.
Don’t they realize they are both being arrested? Jeez, it ain’t rocket science.
Bet Kendall Jenner isn’t having her 818 Tequila excluded is she?
grim What is the rational that the large brewers etc can , and the small ones can’t?
Grim,
So what?
You only get to grow up only to be tortured and controlled by the freak system anyway.
How many years do you actually get to have fun in your life before you complain about how your business and the product you worked to sell that feeds your family is decimated by corporate interests?
Eff ’em. Let the kids party. Won’t be long before they are slaves to the despots of America.
Wanna be a doctor? No more private practice for you, work for the hospital, Beech.
Wanna own your own vet office, nope, go work for Mars Healthcare.
Wanna sell alcohol, better sell your formula to some corp.
Rent a house or apartment owned by a hedge fund.
You wanna know why there are problems, everyone is being squeezed by corporate and monitored by an ever increasing police state.
No one stays at the same job long enough to become friends with anyone-or gets to know their kids. Will there be retirement parties in the future?
3b
It’s easy. Those with money don’t want others cutting into their profits. Every sip of alcohol made by Grim is a sip of alcohol lost by corporate distillers.
That shows up on the computer screen under lost profits.
Protect your business revenue at all costs. It will always be this way…
grim says:
February 16, 2022 at 8:37 am
We’re reviewing the proposed documents that were recently released surrounding competition in the liquor industry with our lobbyist now. Suspect most of this shit was written by big business lobbyists to protect their stranglehold on the industry. No surprise there.
re: ” fun times at the shore this year”
That started last summer with the new laws that went into effect in January 21 hence the flash mob parties in Beach Haven, Long Branch etc last summer.
They modified the law in March to allow parental notifications of anyone under 18, but basically anyone 21 yrs old and under no more searches of young people for concealed beer cans, and police officers cannot stop them if they smell marijuana, either. Instead, officers can only issue written warnings if they catch someone under 21 with weed or booze out in the open, if you were drinking a Budweiser in plain sight on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights etc. Those warning records are also sealed from criminal record searches.
The idea here is the parents cannot control them, so they won’t be arrested until they hit age 22, give them more time to mature. It’s a really interesting social experiment, will increase or decrease use of alcohol and marijuana? Only time will tell.
Just for the record, Old, I don’t hate women. I do despise my ex, however, just as you do.
However, using the court system and the police to help you commit a crime is unacceptable behavior- or, no, it is acceptable behavior, cause it’s been done to both of us, and thousands of others, and no one seems to get prosecuted for it.
Well, unlike you, I am a pit bull. And if you do this to me you are bound to get bit sooner or later.
Old realtor says:
February 15, 2022 at 10:09 am
Phoenix,
I separated from my ex in 1997. We have almost zero contact. Our relationships with our 3 children are entirely separated. My children know that I want to be cremated. The instructions are to scatter my ashes in their mother’s eyes!
False police reports and false accusations of child molestation were lodged against me. Despite this I don’t hate women. I only hate my ex!
grim What is the rational that the large brewers etc can , and the small ones can’t?
The argument against smaller craft from the large scale producers (of all alcohol types), is that craft producers are afforded privileges far above and beyond what large producers are. For example, having a tasting room, being able to self distribute. These are memorialized in the different license types across many states.
That said, these craft license types also have caps and limits in terms of production scale. Hit a certain point, and you need to give up your craft license and move up into a different tier. Likewise, craft producers can’t be expected to use the 3 tier distribution system that is dominated by the major players. If I have to use a NJ licensed distributor, and they need to decide whether they want to push Tito’s or Grim’s this month, I’m going to lose. They can create incentives so large that I can’t even produce for what they sell for. Most of the big distributors in NJ wouldn’t even bother to distribute for a new local craft brand, completely locking them out of the market. Big business obviously doesn’t care about this distinction. The liquor industry post prohibition was created in such a way that it favored monopolies, conglomerates, and huge producers/distributors.
They don’t necessarily fear a single craft producer, but with enough scale, the craft producers can dominate and out-compete in their local markets. I can build stronger relationships, I can run more effective local marketing campaigns, if I’m owning the distribution channel, I can more effectively compete on price, and most of all, I can keep my customers happier than they can. That’s scary as hell. Why bother trying to compete at the local market level, when you can lobby and just lock the whole craft market out?
That Long Branch incident cause every single shore town to shut down their fireworks for 4th of July the next week as the next planned party just kept being shifted to any place that was going to hold them.
I was in Belmar in 92? at the MTV sports festival when things went south really quickly. I believed Avon raised their bridges to prevent it from spilling over into their enclave.
Phoenix – What did you do to make her so furious at you? Let me guess she did not like the way you loaded the dishwasher?
Smelled something.
Hahaha
https://youtu.be/1lRtAcOk2i4?t=375
Longboat Key, FL sunset is 6:23 today, dipping into the gulf of Mexico. Sunset will be 7:39 on 3/15.
re: “I was in Belmar in 92” I was there too fun times, those 12 year old rappers with the backward pants were singing and they shut the party down. It was the towns fault they decided to have a concert of 75,000 people on their beach, that is something that should only be pulled off in a stadium and even then lots of trouble and arrests will happen in the stadium and parking lots etc.
I remember drinking beer on the dunes of Seaside Park when were were bored underage teens with drivers licenses and cars. We did all kinds of nonsense back then, having fun during the short warm summer at the Jersey Shore is a right of passage for kids from this state. It’s back now that the PoPo legally have their hands tied. let them party but teach them to be responsible. Heck they should lower the drinking age again, uber is only a screen swipe away.
You want a real world example of the impact on the economy?
(some big distillery that doesn’t exist anymore) in Clifton, where they made plastic bottle Vodka, employed 8 production workers. 8. They did more than a million cases a year. They were probably doing $50 million a year in sales. Most of the production workers were minimum wage or near it.
My place in Clifton, employed 8 workers, produced substantially less, and I think our lowest paid worker last year was $18/hr when you factor in their cut of card tips, probably closer to $25/hr because I have no way of counting cash tips.
Juice,
Actually, it was that she didn’t like that I told her the dirty side of the dishes needed to face the middle of the dishwasher if she wanted them to come clean.
Or that bowls can’t be left in the dishwasher facing up if you didn’t want a bowl of dirty water at the end of a cycle.
Or that there is a manual for the dishwasher showing her how to load it correctly if she wanted clean dishes. That yes, there is a “correct” way to do it.
Or when she slammed her own boss-and how I told her she should “chill” instead of “supporting her” in her destructive ways ( they ended up canning her after my divorce).
She is a pathologic liar-and good at it.
Texted me a message, couldn’t pick up our child at the normal time after a visit. Asked for an extra hour. Then drove to the local police station, and told them I didn’t return our daughter and she was scared for her life. Local cop attacks me like I am a criminal during the drop off. I tell him I have an email from her. He says “Shut up. I don’t have to look at your email. You do what I tell you or you are going to be arrested.”
Later on I go to the station to try and show this cretin the email. He comes out with a buddy this time. Buddy looks at the email and just puts his head down. He knew.
These guys must bang more divorced women then drummers bang their snare.
Cause that is what it’s about. Being a hero, and being in power. Not about justice.
Heck they should lower the drinking age again, uber is only a screen swipe away.
What would the MADD Mommies do? They would be besides themselves. It’s their crusade.
Time to start DAMM
Drunks against Mad Mommies.
Hahaha
Apparently MADD didn’t even put up a fight against this.
Phoenix – She has a new gig ” director of government relations at Montclair State University”
https://newjerseyglobe.com/legislature/rodriguez-gregg-to-be-director-of-government-relations-at-montclair-state/
Cannot find anything on the DWI and obstruction charge, I gather the trial has yet to happen.
MADD has turned into #metoo and Karening 101.
They have found you can make more money with an accusation against a man by either extorting a payoff, or moving up the career ladder without ever having to work for it.
There ain’t no money in the MADD arena.
Cash is king. Supposedly 16m on this one. Cha CHing.
The Duke of York and his accuser Virginia Giuffre have reached an out-of-court settlement in the civil sex claim filed in the US. In a letter submitted to the United States District Court on Tuesday, Ms Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies wrote jointly with Andrew’s lawyers to say that the parties had “reached a settlement in principle”
Juice,
She was actually pretty nice in that video. I wouldn’t unlock my cell phone and hand it to the police. Just out of principle. I do it all of the time with my co workers, however, as they handle things on it for me faster than I can, or find something on it.
I switched this year from Android to Apple, it is a much higher learning curve than I thought. Honestly I don’t like Apple software, everything is “hidden” to make it look neat and added work to find things you need. And when you want to put something where you want it doesn’t allow you to.
Its like looking at the dinner table and there is a chicken, a placemat, and a dish. But when you ask for the utensils, you find they are under the placemat to make the table look “neater.”
Just put the d am n knife fork and spoon where I can see them.
Yup, so true.
I feel bad for any girl married to a cop. That’s why they have such a high divorce rate. They are brainwashed at the academy to think they are the most powerful individual in the room at all times, and carry that over into their marriage. They use that badge to do whatever they want. Poor wife thinks their husband is a hero when he is f/ing girls on the job on the regular.
“Later on I go to the station to try and show this cretin the email. He comes out with a buddy this time. Buddy looks at the email and just puts his head down. He knew.
These guys must bang more divorced women then drummers bang their snare.
Cause that is what it’s about. Being a hero, and being in power. Not about justice.”
GP
Just wait till your wife cries to one of them.
They will throw you out of your house and screw her in the bed they threw you out of ten minutes earlier.
Putin did have some economically liberal advisors, but he fired most of them about 20 years ago. He did do some economic reform, tax reductions and simplifications early on. The past 20 years has been mostly about boosting his own power base. Did a few reforms to get into the WTO. Economically, Russia isn’t unusually unfree vs world standards. Corruption is the main problem for businesses, and the big companies generally make sure to stay on Putin’s good side.
Chinese companies get a lot more pressure and regulatory change from government, especially in recent years.
Hit the link for the wsj article.
“This is going to go deep. Of immense distortion is the Goldman Sachs “Unprofitable Tech” basket that uses GAAP accounting. Not only is it misleading and false for a large portion of companies but it was used to tank $ARKK. There’s some prominent people weaponize FUD.”
https://twitter.com/dilksjay/status/1493953731351691272?s=21
Grim: That is ridiculous. The big boys just don’t want the competition, and the bought and paid for politicians do what they are told to.
Left,
I’d be careful with Roku. Short-term, it may have a little further to drop, but they run a very lean business with a lot of ad revenue and decent earnings. No sign of slowing growth either. Simply a case of their P/E being stupid. It was nearly 500 a year ago. It has now returned to prepandemic levels and it’s P/E at 75, though still stupid, reflects the likelihood of earnings growth of nearly 40% for the next 3-5 years.
For whatever reason, advertisers like their platform.
“President Joe Biden came into office with a plan to fix inflation…[inflation leads] to higher prices and lower wages in what the White House says is an average cost of $5,000 annually for U.S. families. Biden is now trying to remedy the situation with 72 distinct initiatives…”
Because more regulatory burden on business reduces, not increases, costs….
LOL.
So, what, Nancy and Joe collectively have over a century in DC and neither has ever held a real private sector job in the last 50 years? Or run their own business. Ever.
closed shorts on SHOP today. Still think it has more to go but I’m sick of the volatility. Stomach aches are almost not worth it during these bear rallies, even though you end up the big winner.
Lib, Roku’s vulnerability is the possibility of a shrinking user base. As “Smart TV’s” proliferate how many will use the Roku platform vs. Android TV or WebOs or Tizen. People likely will ditch the dongle when they get smart tv’s. Roku has for years made one of the best dongles and it’s cheap, advertisers like the TV app paradigm advertisements as they are far more targeted than broadcast ads this is why samsung is doing ads on it’s smart tv’s.
“Local cop attacks me like I am a criminal during the drop off. I tell him I have an email from her.”
You do realize you walk around with a permanent video and audio recorder in your hand?
Use it, with a decent (pro-bono) lawyer and a worldwide social information dissemination machine called the internet.
House on Label Street, 7 houses away from my multi and much closer to the tracks, was just upgraded on the cheap and I heard through the grapevine that bids went well into the 700s. Tons of vultures made up the 71 offers the realtor who listed it claimed.
I felt bad for the family who rented there for 30+ years. What was affordable housing is no longer.
The towns rent freeze, now going on two years is causing nearly investment property owner to sell. The group representing the rent control advocates is planning some pretty draconian rules and owners are fixing up and jumping ship.
How is this for a terrible rule. Rent increases limited to 2.5% for seniors, but 4.5% for anyone else. So who is going to rent to a senior?
Here’s another one. They are proposing a max raise of 10% between tenants or you will be limited to one tenant turnover vacancy increase every 5 years.
Meanwhile, I’m on year three without an increase now with one set of tenants due to bad timing. Two years for the other. I was a little behind on the annual increase letter and boom, the freeze was established. I’ve lost between 15-20K from this, not accounting for the increases in tax and sewage rates.
Re: ROKU, what JCer said….they are only a content aggregator at a still crazy P/E. All the content producers are rapidly moving to their own distribution channels and a college sophomore studying CS can cut them out of the TV OS…actually, their results from last quarter specifically mentions revenue softness due to less TV sales, in that case because one large customer of theirs had diminished hardware sales because of their own supply chain problems…point taken, not only do they not control their own content but they don’t have good control of the last point of distribution….the producers of content and final distribution points can squeeze the daylights out of them…not to mention the day YouTube, Amazon, or Apple wants to get serious and they can divert one quarter of cash flow to the effort and squash these guys. And, they have Sling, etc on the low end for those customers who want to cut the cord, have easy and cheap access to the core linear channels, and then supplement on their own with other platforms.
Basically, I see their customer base ultimately being very narrow – the person who is not lazy enough to just keep paying the cable bill but is lazy enough to substitute this high price aggregator instead of going full on a la carte streaming…that paired with a supplier base that is downright hostile to their incremental cost (see DIS cutting out Hulu, in which they actually have an ownership interest, from first run programming) these guys have no long term reason to exist, or at least certainly no pathway to earnings growth to support valuation (especially given their current US penetration rate).
Took a starter short position through some option spreads, highly leveraged, ahead of earnings mostly financed by writing deep OTM puts. Hopefully we’ll both be correct Lib and my purchased shorts will pay but the stock won’t decline so far as to fuck me on the writes. I’ll evaluate for the longer term after Friday but I’ve talked myself into really disliking this company. Which, I also discovered while typing this, has the added bear flag of being a core holding of the demented grandma.
Sorry for terrible grammar there. Very busy morning at work. Fuel pump went on my Mazda 6 at 117K too. First significant original part replaced. All this damn road salt.
LW,
Except I wasn’t expecting it when it happened.
I have plenty of things I have recorded, etc.
If there ever is a GTG I will tell you more, things I won’t post.
They all made my life a living hell.
Libturd,
You can see the insanity of government regulation when it’s applied to a business that you are up close and personal with (rent control). Why don’t you see that this is a general consequence of government regulation in business?
No one and you watch, the small landlord is hammered with this stuff but the big corporate buildings will manage to opt out…. Somehow they always manage to get an exemption, the government is corrupt to it’s core. Than some large entity will go and buy up the rental housing stock in town and lobby to increase rents after they own a majority of the rental apartments in town.
Capitalism. The cheap locations are no longer cheap. I said this for a long time on this blog. Now wait for the taxes to follow with the huge influx in population to take care of.
Move away from the northeast please. Continue to make this area less populated and cheaper.
“More companies and employees are relocating to the Sunbelt states. Now investors from all over are eagerly buying up apartment buildings in the south to capitalize on the new demand and rising rents, writes Will Parker. Investors poured a record $335.3 billion into apartments across the country in 2021. Nearly a quarter of it went to just four metro areas in the Sunbelt: Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston.
That vacation home you saw listed on VRBO or Airbnb might just be owned by Wall Street. Investment firms are buying up more vacation-rental properties, aiming to cash in on growing demand from tourists and remote workers, reports Konrad Putzier. This week, investment firm Saluda Grade said it is launching a venture with short-term-rental operator AvantStay to buy about $500 million of homes. Saluda Grade said it is also looking to raise debt by selling mortgage bonds backed by its homes to investors.”
Roku advocates point out that they get their system integrated into smaller TV brands as well. But if TV makers consolidate and get bigger, more of them might make their own operating system for streaming, like Samsung does.
Seems risky, but it’s also possible it could work out. Long run, consumer electronics hasn’t been a great industry.
It’s amazing that Garmin figured out how to survive even after the car GPS unit business fell apart.
February 16, 2022 12:10PM
Never selling the multi – need outlet to kvetch too strong
Libturd says:
February 16, 2022 at 11:39 am
House on Label Street, 7 houses away from my multi and much closer to the tracks, was just upgraded on the cheap and I heard through the grapevine that bids went well into the 700s. Tons of vultures made up the 71 offers the realtor who listed it claimed.
I felt bad for the family who rented there for 30+ years. What was affordable housing is no longer.
The towns rent freeze, now going on two years is causing nearly investment property owner to sell. The group representing the rent control advocates is planning some pretty draconian rules and owners are fixing up and jumping ship.
How is this for a terrible rule. Rent increases limited to 2.5% for seniors, but 4.5% for anyone else. So who is going to rent to a senior?
Here’s another one. They are proposing a max raise of 10% between tenants or you will be limited to one tenant turnover vacancy increase every 5 years.
Meanwhile, I’m on year three without an increase now with one set of tenants due to bad timing. Two years for the other. I was a little behind on the annual increase letter and boom, the freeze was established. I’ve lost between 15-20K from this, not accounting for the increases in tax and sewage rates.
Russia takes Ukraine today………
China takes Taiwan tomorrow…..
Yes. I said it.
ChiFi,
I agree on Russia. Taiwan, not sure of.
As to the multi, I think you’ll be surprised.
JCer,
I don’t know of a single person who uses the built in Smart TV interface on their TVs. Not one. I have a $4,000 Sony TV (Android). What a POS the interface is. I love me my AppleTV box. The interface is absolutely the bomb. I wouldn’t invest in Roku since it’s long-term growth is questionable. But I wouldn’t short it for a long time either. At worst, I see this stock moving sideways for a year years. At best, up between 5 and 10 percent for the next couple of years.
NoOne,
There is a middle ground for regulation. The problem with this country right now is that the parties can’t compromise. So the left takes it to one extreme and the right takes it to their extreme. Somewhere in the middle is nearly always the ideal.
Take for example, river pollution. Trump would kill a river if it meant more jobs. Biden would save a river even if it meant significantly less jobs. Meaningful regulation would allow a reasonable level of river pollution (perhaps just enough that nature would do it’s thing to naturally clean the river) that would allow some jobs.
Lib, I guess I’m old school. I use the built in crap, then again I still have “fios tv” and a TiVo. Even LG’s really weird interface which I have actually come to like as it is unobtrusive and incredibly stable. Truth be told I’ll normally just pull up what ever I want to watch on my phone and cast rather than try to navigate on the TV. I have an Android TV(Sharp) as well it’s really not that bad, the google assistant and voice search is pretty decent the bigger issue is the software is buggy both the android on the device(which was done by a Chinese outfit) and the third party apps. But the fact remains the hardware is better on the TV than what you get in the streaming devices outside of the apple tv. Then again I largely use the “smart tv” functions for the plex app as I refuse to pay for streaming services(outside of prime), my server has something like 9tb of content including everything ever recorded on my tivo and if anyone wants to watch something as ancient as a DVD(which I think I literally have 100 or more of these from the year of the flood) it need to be handbraked to the plex server as literally we have nothing connected to our TV’s in most rooms.
I’ll add the avg schmuck just uses what comes with the TV. If people cared about interfaces TiVo would not be a dying business but they don’t, the cable co gives you a DVR it’s terrible but no one really cares. Same is true for streaming as long as Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Prime, AppleTV, et al work, people will use what comes with the TV.
Does anyone know when I can expect my O’Biden Wuhan Whammy test kit? Still waiting for delivery. In fact, I’m still waiting for my Obammy phone, too.
RIP P.J. O’Rourke
In the late 80s, early 90’s I bought all of his books at the time. Libertarian and funny. Even memorized a few of his funniest sentences. Books like Republican Party Reptiles, Holidays in Hell, Parlaiment of Whores, Give War a Chance were a great way to learn about the US and the World. Bought in person at actual book stores! You basically got a chapter on a bunch of countries or topics. Some of the descriptions of countries are outdated now, but most of the ideas are not.
Amazing to think there was a libertarian humorist whose books you could find in mid-sized book stores. Are there any such popular authors now? Maybe Greg Gutfeld or Adam Carolla.
Here’s an example of his writing:
“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in
the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.
Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction
and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the
wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any
indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst
off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every gov-
ernment is a parliament of whores.
The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.”
Lib at 11:39 on rent control . . .
A lower rent increase for seniors or disabled people is pretty common around NJ. 2.5%/4.5% is on the better side of things, as these things go in NJ (obviously, rent control is a bad policy in general). The towns based on CPI have been killing property owners for many years. 0.1% increases, haha.
“Who is going to rent to a senior” – the Dems in Trenton might have already forced landlords to do so (if not, they will one day). It is housing discrimination to discriminate on a source of income and likely on age. If the senior can pay you, you cannot refuse to rent. If this isn’t already law in NJ, I believe both CA and NY have similar such laws either in place or these ideas are swirling around in the minds of tenant advocates. Similarly, in CA or NY, I think, it might be the law or its a proposed law that the first qualified tenant who submits an application cannot be refused (i.e., landlords can’t pick among candidates because obviously the landlords are racists rather than people who might just suspect one prospective tenant rather than another will be easier to deal with overall).
The 10% max between tenant and vacancy increase every 5 years is similar to what NYC did. In my opinion, over time, this change in law really has the potential to cause dramatic harm to NYC. In NYC, it’s either 10 or 15 years between vacancy-renovation increases and I think the increase amount is a smaller percentage. Still, better than the towns in NJ where there is NO vacancy decontrol (so, when Granny moves out to the nursing home and her legal rent was $700; you need to seek a new tenant at that rent unless you are on the road to selling the unit as condos) (see Union City).
My position is that the tenant advocates should instead focus on housing supply rather than regulating rents. Tenant advocates should be pushing for easy legalization of basement and attic units. Tenant advocates should be pushing for easy zoning for huge multifamily developments in the downtown commercial areas. Rent control just arbitratily creates winners and losers and creates economic waste. But, whatever, I personally benefit economically from the current system continuing.
Phoenix and middle-aged women . . .
Recent articles states that the romance scam industry in the US has reached over $1 billion/year. Typicaly targets are woman 40+, divorced, etc.
So, after a woman has driven her ex off and pillaged his finances, she later becomes lonely. Once lonely, she might fall for an online romance scam, sending big money (origin=her ex husband’s labor) overseas to essentially a company’s office in Nigeria.
The streaming interfaces & apps built in to the Smart TVs rarely get updates and tend to lag and suck after about a year. Roku et al are much more in tune with their hardware & software and and much quicker to update.
Crushed,
Watching someone else’s demise is really not my cup of tea, with the exception of a few individuals.
Send your money to Nigera, a Trump or Biden fund for all I care.
I don’t want any of it. Nor do I want anything to do with a woman who thinks some puss is a gift to me, or anyone else.
Always felt if you did the deed it’s cause you both wanted it. It’s not a favor.
If that’s how you feel you can keep it.
Some here might enjoy Adam Carolla’s book
“In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks… And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy”
Phoenix would really enjoy the chapter that includes the section: “Chicks are Dumb/Evil”
Do people still read humorous/satirical books any more?
What a fun visit:
https://youtu.be/wSjKm-5xkUA?t=1
Never liked Adam Carolla.
Maybe I should. Naaah.
This one is for LW. I find this both funny and clever. But it just reminds me of him when it rotates around to my playlist. My kid gets a kick out of it as well.
https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc
Hahaha. Yeah, not surprised one bit:
A New Jersey mall fight that ended with police handcuffing and pinning a Black teen to the floor while a light-skinned teen was allowed to sit on a couch is under investigation, officials announced. The state’s governor said Tuesday he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.
A video recorded Saturday at Bridgewater Commons Mall in Bridgewater Township, N.J., shows two male teens arguing and pointing fingers in each other’s faces. After they shoved each other, the boys exchanged punches and caused a couch to slide across the floor during the altercation.
But as police responded about 20 seconds into the fight, they threw the light-skinned teen to the couch, and a male officer tackled and pinned the Black teen to the floor. As the male officer straddled the teen, the female officer on scene appeared to have her knee on the boy’s back. The Black teen showed no signs of resistance, according to the video.
While this was unfolding, the light-skinned teen sat on the couch and was not detained by police. Young people who witnessed the fight quickly observed the juxtaposition. A young woman is heard saying in the video, “It’s because he’s Black, racially motivated.”
The left certainly doesn’t believe in satire anymore. They canceled Pepe lepew and accused him of being a rapist. They also trying to cancel stand up comedy although unsuccessfully up till now.
My favorite example is canceling dr Seuss. They accused him of dehumanizing characters in his books. Lol.
“Similarly, in CA or NY, I think, it might be the law or its a proposed law that the first qualified tenant who submits an application cannot be refused…”
Guess my leases will soon resemble the ‘opt-in’ internet agreement forms with 22 clauses no one reads….Oh, Mrs Smith, we’d love to have her but her application wasn’t complete as she didn’t mail a copy of the completed application RRR as provided in paragraph 17, clause 3, subparagraph a…..
Phoenix, I don’t know how it came about but I am most certainly not the grammar police here…my English SAT score was nearly 200 lower than my math and on any given day here I know I make hash of basic aspects of our still common language….
I use Plex and sold my TIVO. It was the greatest deal ever. I was gifted a series three and bought the lifetime membership for something like $100. I hardwired a hardrive in myself to increase the capacity from 30 hours to like 1000 for another $150. Sold the unit on Ebay for $300 five years later once TIVO discontinued the lifetime membership.
Plex is the bomb by the way. So great for free. I no longer store any videos/movies. I just download them from a torrent as needed and watch them through Flex.
Lib,
Taking it to the extreme is the smoke bomb of cover…
Here is a tech investment that caters to small real estate owners. Not me, name coincidence. They collect your rent for you apparently. Good idea to make large operator tools available to mom & pop but at what price.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/16/nomad-closes-on-20m-to-transform-the-landlord-tenant-experience/
Ed, just got mine. Roche, was pleasantly surprised.
My government cheese arrived today. Two Binax now test kits courtesy of Joe Biden bubble wrapped all the way from Kansas, too bad the pandemic is over.
Phoenix – The female officer is at fault she did not follow procedure and take the kid in t to the ground, perhaps she should have deployed a less lethal device like a taser if she was unable to tackle him.
Donald Duck that Nazi is still running lose with no pants too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn20oXFrxxg
I wonder if the fact that half the country now has a testing kit in their homes is going to create a mini-surge? You know how stupid the average person is. They are going to waste it the second they get it. But many people who didn’t know they have it will find out they do.
Lib – Your river analogy sucks. The EPA was created by the Republicans. The Boomers most hated president Nixon created and signed the Executive Order to do it, perhaps because an oil spill off the coast of his beloved California the year before. Before you pull the Trump clip I will remind you it’s been 50 years since Nixon created the EPA and the Orange Clown was complaining about over regulation that have stifled and sent our manufacturing jobs overseas where it’s is not regulated at all. Trump in my book is wrong about many things but on this one it’s hard to say. The world demands it’s cheap plastic crap, electronics, and car parts that can never be made here now because it could never pass any kind of EPA regs that we have today. I would rather have the pollution in China than in my back yard, and so would you and everyone else. It’s a trade off we all have to live with.
There is no real reporting on the home test kits. For NJ you are supposed to contact the county health board if you test positive. Good luck getting past the answering machine.
This is also how our Governor can claim fewer children infected. Most kids tested positive on a home test and were told by their doctor to stay home and rest. No report to the health board and maybe a follow up PCR test if you can even book one a week later that would be negative so they can to go back to school etc, but now all that is out the window.
Nomad,
I wouldn’t touch that company with a ten-foot pole when this market turns. Smart product in the meantime. VCs are going to watch their money go up in smoke.
Juice,
Ignore the source. This one isn’t too bad with bias. The article is an example of where I am coming from.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/climate/federal-judge-trump-water-pollution.html
And at some point, we will have to start worrying about the pollution in China.
Lib – The city slickers again don’t know what they are talking about. Farm runoff is a fact if you want food, that ruling now means the Federal EPA regulates dry ditches on farmland. It is way too broad. I am all for regulating heavy polluters but really fertilizer runoff and pesticides in farmland ditches is a fact if you want food.
Farmland ditches look it up, it’s not water running in rivers we are talking about here when it comes to over regulation.
Are we still a first world country?
https://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/s/i4f45/nj-cop-charged-in-killing-of-his-baby-freed-from-jail-prosecutor?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert
I heard that New Orleans is an absolute crime-infested mess right now. Some casin0 hosts are advocating not coming down for Mardi Gras this year. Wow!
I’ll look Juice, but it’s hard to find the truth in any of this.
Juice,
Just watched the video, didn’t get to see it before.
The video is clear.
What is not is the penalties that should be assessed.
My guess is no one is getting fired. But that is exactly what should happen.
BTW – Some of the most polluted waterways in the world are in our area. When you look at what happened in upstate NY on the Hudson river. GE was making capacitors up there, same ones in your A/C unit to start the fan and the same ones in those humming fluorescent lights that used to be around in every office celling before LEDs. They dumped the chemicals right into the Hudson, PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls stuff is great for capacitors and bad for fatty tissue because it is an organic chlorine compound that causes cancer. Never eat a fish caught in the Hudson River ever it will as PCBs could be around in the food chain forever.
Modern life is a tradeoff folks. GE BTW fought it in courts for 30 years and finally has paid for the dredging after losing in court. There is still a big pile of the stuff where they dumped it over 50 years ago and will be for years until they finish dredging the river where they dumped it. Meanwhile it flows downstream.
Where are those capacitors made now? Take a guess, even though the stuff is banned it’s still around and will be for a long time.
Why would an American Corporation fight this. Doesn’t it believe in America? Doesn’t it have similar rights as a person? Isn’t GE patriotic?
GE BTW fought it in courts for 30 years and finally has paid for the dredging after losing in court. There is still a big pile of the stuff where they dumped it over 50 years ago and will be for years until they finish dredging the river where they dumped it. Meanwhile it flows downstream.
And what ever happened to this guy? Boomer bury his body in a block of cement in order to increase his stock earnings?
https://youtu.be/h0sxwGlTLWw
Phoenix -re: “penalties that should be assessed”. Should that woman cop be fired for discrimination and kneeling on the black kid? The male cop did his job as far as I know anyway from my armchair perch watching a short YouTube of two bored kids reenacting a scene from West Side Story and beefing in public.
Was it wrong to take them to the ground and cuff them at all? Perhaps anyone under 22 years old should be allowed to fight it out, cops should be told unless weapons are involved not to intervene? Call it the “stand back and let them have it out law”…..and buy the kids ice-cream after it’s over?
Lib,
Are you really surprised.
Go find some land in Costa Rica. This place is a dump. The legal system would never allow me to take my kid anywhere or I would leave.
Maybe then you can be lucky enough to have a meteorite land on it as well!
White kid never cuffed. White kid on top of black kid, was the aggressor.
Both cops at fault. Both should have been cuffed.
The end.
Phoeinx – They went far for sure decades of litigation and actually went and challenged the constitutionality of the Superfund law after it was already proven they polluted the Hudson river forever.
But hey we like electrical products…..and who knew modern life causes cancer?
The white kid even admits the cops were wrong.
Slam Dunk. But no one will be losing their jobs.
It’s what they do. They pick who they think is guilty, and attack that one.
If you are a white woman, they are particularly nice to you. If you are a white guy, you are losing to a white woman that’s for sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNFS3H3x3Q
Juice,
They know what they are dumping, they know what it causes.
They know it would cost money to dispose of correctly, but then shareholders would cut their n u TZ off. So boomer gets his check, and the river gets fouled up.
Boomer leaves the debt and dirty water, and pockets the money.
It’s the same old story.
In 1972, town officials thought they’d found a perfect solution to the problem: they paid local waste-hauler Russell Bliss just 6 cents per gallon to spray its roads with oil, theoretically gluing the dust to the ground.
Bliss got the oil for free the year before, when a chemical manufacturer that had made most of its money selling napalm to the military paid him to get rid of its waste materials. He mixed six truckloads of that waste–which turned out to be hexachlorophene tainted with dioxin, a dangerous chemical that, once absorbed, can remain in the human body for more than 10 years–with a tankful of used motor oil. Next, he sprayed this carcinogenic cocktail all over town.
The children of Times Beach loved sliding around in Bliss’ purple-tinted goo, and no one gave the substance a second thought until animals (particularly horses, who had contact with Bliss-sprayed roads and barn floors and riding rings every day, all year round) started dropping dead. Soon people started to get sick, too. In 1979, the EPA came to town and took soil samples, and in 1982 the agency announced that the levels of dioxin–“the most potent cancer-causing agent made by man,” the newspaper said–in Times Beach were off the charts.
Phoenix
We have to cancel that commercial for cultural appropriation. The actor was Italian American I think.
Phoenix,
In the malls in Red America, what you saw happen in that Bridgewater Commons video will be commonplace. Profiling is acceptable in Red America. Fights between two white people simply won’t happen there.
Enjoy driving while you can.
“VOLKSWAGEN CEO HERBERT DIESS PREDICTS IN 25 YEARS ALL CARS TO DRIVE AUTONOMOUSLY, “PROBABLY NO ACCIDENTS””
25 years, more than likely I’ll be too old too care.
Sorry pumps
Charlie has spoken. We will not be returning to full time in the office.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/charlie-munger-we-are-never-going-back-to-a-five-day-work-week-in-the-office-212348086.html
25 years, more than likely I’ll be too old too care.
Or dead.
Phoenix and ex
You never know. My great great grandfather and great grandfather both broke 100 and their wives made mid 90s. But my grandfather and his siblings only made it to late 80s. I suspect lifestyle and diet made the difference.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/investors-rental-foreclosure/
HMB,
I’ve seen ’em all. 80, 90, 100.
Seen the outside parts, seen the inside parts, know all the stories.
I wanna be dead.
Growing old ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
HMB,
How old is Charlie.
He looks kind of ancient.
Phoenix
Growing old Like George burns and Betty white is the way to be. My great great grandfather walked 4-5 miles a day when he was 104 and was involved in a bunch of clubs and had hobbies and interests. Sitting in a diaper for a decade not recognizing your owns kids and grandkids is now how I want to wind up.
I think Charlie’s is mid 90s. He’s 8 or 9 years older than warren. He’s looked ancient for 20 years I think.
2 people with unlimited funds are not a good comparison for most Americans.
Let’s be realistic.
Unless you are an old goat with a good pension in America you will most likely run out of money at some point. Or if you don’t have any children to take care of you.
Don’t think you have ever had the pleasure of smelling a 20 cm rotting bedsore have you?
I may have not had the chance to come into this world on my own terms, but I damn sure well have plans to go out the way I want to.
Of course, might not go this way, who knows?
To each his own.
What scumbags.
“In Stamford, Conn., a 46-year-old resident pleaded guilty after putting a portion of $4 million in coronavirus aid toward the purchase of a Porsche. And a Mercedes. And a BMW.
In Somerset, N.J., a 51-year-old woman allegedly invented employees, inflated wages and fabricated entire tax filings to collect $1 million in loans.
And in St. Petersburg, Fla., a federal judge sentenced to prison a 63-year-old man who obtained $800,000 on behalf of businesses that did not exist.
The cases and charges, each announced over the past month, count among hundreds involving a slew of programs enacted by Congress in the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic — money dispatched with an urgency at the time that it is now putting Washington’s watchdogs to the test.”
https://stocks.apple.com/AjvsswsOnRVyucfzjuVV4jQ