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Presidential Voting Results Last two elections Republican Democrat 2020 74,223,975 81,283,501 2016 62,984,828 65,853,514 11,239,147 15,429,987 Trump received 11.2 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Biden received 15.4 million more than HRC over that same period.
There were approx. 245 million adults in America in 2016, rising to 252 million by 2020, an increase of about 3%. Yet the number of voters increased almost 20%.
I wonder why?
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I saw that Barnes & Noble dropped another 27 stores. More interesting to me is that B&N had 725 stores at their peak, but are only down to 604. Meanwhile, Crown Books, Walden Books, B. Dalton, and Borders have all gone completely out of business.
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Here’s the capper: San Francisco won’t allow grocery stores to close.
San Francisco Is Going To Make It Illegal For Stores to Close (msn.com)
My father operated a grocery store from 1979 until the 1990s in Santa Cruz. It is a brutally difficult, margin-challenged business. Unless it’s Whole
PaycheckFoods, it doesn’t make much, if any money. When you add up the pilferage and shoplifting, spoilage, shifting customer base (people aging out, moving out of the area, etc.), it becomes very difficult to close the doors.Food for thought: what if stores like CVS, Target and even fast foods are classified as “providing groceries?” They all do, to some extent. Are they subject to that law?
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Both Biden and Trump hurt the country as President. Biden for immigration, job creation and inflation; Trump for voting rights, abortion and climate change:
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And while I’m piling on the Hypocrite-In-Chief, Gavin Newsom has pressed for $20/hour for fast food workers while at the same time (a) making an exception for his billionaire buddy and campaign donor who owns Panera:
and (b) only pays his own restaurant workers $16/hour:
Gavin Newsom’s Restaurant Offers $16 Hourly Wage to Employee (msn.com)
Why does he do that? Well…why does a dog lick himself? Because he can.
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What’s interesting to me is that the
illegalundocumented immigrant population of America has been stable (supposedly) over the last five years, estimated to be in the 11.4 million range. And yet…there have been 7.2 million apprehensions of illegal undocumented immigrants during Biden’s term (Snopes admits that it is 6x what it was during Trump’s term), along with another 2.8 million who have never been apprehended. About 40% overall have been repatriated to their home countries.My math is 7.2 + 2.8 – 4.0 = Net increase of six million undocumented immigrants. So why is the undocumented immigrant population still considered to be stable at 11.5 million or so? What happened to the net increase of six million undocumented immigrants?
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Government expenditures are now about 25% of GDP, a non-WW high. Without debt financed growth in G (government expenditures for non-economists), the economy would not be growing. But we’re more politicized than ever. Why? Because when the government becomes the most important part of the economy, each fight over who controls the government becomes that much more important. And when the politicians see citizens as revenue streams rather than customers, there’s no end to what the state is owed.
Zeihan’s take is that our demographic shift means we’ve gone from consumer consumption by the Boomers, GenX and Millenials to a saving economy as the large part of the population retires. Here’s his take on American demographics and its effect on the economy:
His comment towards the end of this video is instructive…as America’s manufacturing base reshores, companies will need to attract workers younger than in college…and younger than in high school, that middle school will become the source of choice, somewhat like the German model:
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Wealth tax is coming…
California Considers Controversial Wealth Tax to Address Insane Budget Deficit | Watch
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Bud Light anti-woke reaction costs Budweiser 15% of shelf space. In retail terms, that’s a massive, massive fail, particularly given the fact that the brand has been declining for years.
Personally, I’ve never understood the appeal of Bud Light. My son’s crowd used to enjoy it, but if I’m drinking a beer, I usually go with a craft brew. I’d rather drink water than Bud Light.
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At the same time, American life expectancy has increased in an almost linear fashion (year, average American life expectancy):
1950 68.14
1960 69.84
1970 70.78
1980 73.70
1990 75.19
2000 76.75
2010 78.49
2020 78.93
2024 79.25
So if we live longer, we’ll pay more and get less. C’est la vie. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says a 65 year old retirement age is asinine, given the aforementioned statistics:
America’s retirement age of 65 is “crazy,” BlackRock CEO says (msn.com)
My father retired at age 52. My father in law (Stanford grad) took early retirement from NASA when the Challenger blew up just after his 50th birthday. He had a great pension. I won’t have any such thing, at least nothing that I don’t fund myself.
U.S. Life Expectancy 1950-2024 | MacroTrends
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I think the turning point for me came about two decades back. I had my house appraised by a British woman. We started conversing, I asked her how she enjoyed America, and she loved it, of course. Who wouldn’t?
One of the things she liked about America was that her two sons were not citizens and were therefore protected from any kind of conscription. They grew up under the blanket of liberty that our armed forces provide, yet there was no way she would expose them to that kind of danger.
GR, who has an immigrant daughter in law if memory services, once claimed that immigrants will protect us in the military. Sure, a very small percentage do. Immigrants today account for 13.7% of the population, about triple that (4.8%) in 1970. About 5% of the armed forces (68,711) are foreign born.
I think immigrants are great, they add a great deal to our country, and our forbears all came from somewhere else originally. Much, much less so in the military than in other walks of American life.
I had already been souring on the development of this country. When succeeding presidents, of both political stripes, created policies that sent American jobs overseas, and the American middle class started to vanish…let’s just say I understand why Trump succeeded. I sure don’t agree with everything the man says or does…but I understand his appeal.
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Well, he’s a liar’s liar, for sure. Trump lies, everyone knows that…but neither Obama nor Biden are stellar beacons of truth telling, either…
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The Law of Unintended Consequences is a bitch, for sure. Ramp up environmental protections, lose hundreds of thousands of jobs.
How American environmentalism failed.
How American Environmentalism Failed | The MIT Press Reader
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