Well…damn, just crashed the bike but that’s for the next one…right now, I want to talk about the right’s latest bogeyman, JIT. As you know, there have been some pretty big supply disruptions with lots of container ships stuck outside of the major ports here in the US…and warnings that you should be shopping for christmas now so you will be able to get presents…and, of course, the right wing media is blaming the whole thing on Biden for reasons that make absolutely no sense….but that doesn’t matter to them. What everyone has to understand is that the bottlenecks are caused by a little thing in the supply chains called JIT…or just in time production. Back about 30 years or so, people started to notice that there was lots and lots of inventory and work in progress in their warehouses and factories that was costing them tons of cash to just store….and the production and other processes worked to estimates of what would be needed since that was the only information they had and most businesses and warehouses had months of production and stock just sitting there…but then new ideas started to form about making processes more efficient and only making goods that you have orders for…the idea of just in time started to be adopted across the world to squeeze every penny out of the supply chain. As it became more and more efficient, it also became more and more susceptible to disruption as the chain balanced on a knife edge with no tolerance for problems in any part of it. When the pandemic hit and closed factories accross Asia and everywhere else, and shut down ports and other transport systems necessary to move goods, the finely balanced house of cards fell apart since there were no warehouses full of goods to cushion the shocks, and the result was bare shelves across the country. But what Biden has to do with it, I don’t know…these are private, capitalistic systems that have been built to profit the owners and no one else…so tell me the actions he has taken that disrupted this house of cards? No…yeah, didn’t think there were any….is Biden hiding shipping containers at the WH? Is he telling truck drivers to quit since they are being paid less now than they were 40 years ago? Did he offshore all of American manufacturing so good have to be shipped from Asia? I think the repubs really are too stupid to understand the pitfalls of JIT…as an ME, I built many of these systems at the furniture manufacturer I worked for and lived the chaos when they crashed…this is just on a much bigger scale…geez…
Category Archives: Politics
Still looking for a topic…
Well…as I sit here waiting for the rain to stop so I can get on the bike, I thought I’d come here and do one of these…but a good topic escapes me…oh, here’s one…do all repubs not pay their debts? We all know that the idiot trump stiffs everyone that works for him…and after one time, I wonder why anyone would work for him…he still owes money on his casinos that have been torn down and people continue to give him more money for some reason…but, he’s not the only repub that doesn’t pay his bills…just today it was reported that ole Newt still owes almost 5 million bucks from his failed run for president in 2012…and he has no intent to pay any of it back…even though he could afford it with the millions he makes from fox news…this is the rot that has infected the modern repub party…I remember when they were fiscally responsible folks…but maybe they never were…I mean I’m an old guy and maybe my memory is crappy….don’t think so, though….geez…
We can’t afford it?
Well…the whiners on the right are trying to torpedo the infrastructure bill that the dems are negotiating with them for by saying that “we can’t afford it” and the 350 billion dollar a year pricetag is just too high….to put that in perspective, we just have to look at the amount of money that billionaires have made in the last two years of the pandemic. It was reported just yesterday that these folks net worth increased by almost 1.9 trillion dollars…yep, that’s trillion with a t and that is just sick….look, if we just taxed these people at the rate that regular people pay, around 20 percent, the whole bill would be paid for with an extra 30 billion left over…and that doesn’t even include what could be done if we finally has a minimum corporate tax rate of say 15% which would bring in another 100 billion a year at least…so, again, the repubs are lying when they say “we can’t afford it”…we CAN afford it, if they would just get out of the way and let government work for the people for a change….geez…
Weird elections out here…
Well…with the rain continuing, I have a morning to fill so I thought I’d come here and do one of these after fixing the mower…as I get ready to fill in my absentee ballot for the election next month and read about the candidates who are running for city commission and mayor, I find it odd that the entire election is supposed to be non-partisan…which means none of the candidates can say whether they are a dem or repub…so that makes it a little more difficult for me to make sure I don’t vote for a repub…but, luckily, some of the candidates have gotten pretty clever in listing their endorsements that send a clear message of what party they belong to….and I have mailers for every one of them laying on my coffee table to read and their websites, too, I mean would a repub ever be endorsed by the dem progressive caucus? Pretty sure they wouldn’t and there are others who want to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard…and others who are “business” minded…and you can pretty well guess what party he belongs to…it’s a little odd to have to do this deep dive to figure out who to vote for…but, I have the time and I know who I want to work with to continue the progress up here…now I just need to drop the ballot off this week….
They lied about unemployment, too….
Well…I’m sure you’ve heard all of the stories pushed by the repubs in the spring and summer the the “generous” unemployment benefits of 300 dollars a week were keeping the lazy workers from looking for work and there was a “labor shortage” because of it…never mind that employers that started caring about their workers and raised what they paid were swamped with applicants…the only shortage appears to be with employers who want cheap labor for their jobs that doesn’t pay enough to live on. With the reporting on the jobs reports that repubs said would be enormous after cutting of the unemployment benefits, and it wasn’t, we really do see that they were lying about why people weren’t going back to the crappy jobs with low pay and benefits….and that cutting unemployment was no incentive to work when people are still worried about the pandemic or child care, or the health problems that makes it dangerous for some unemployed to go back to work for employers who do nothing to protect them. Just like everything in economics, the repubs don’t care about facts, especially when it gets in the way of their preferred lies that they use to hurt people every day….so I wonder what the new lie is going to be? We’ll see tomorrow….geez…
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Well…with schools starting up and the responsible ones mandating masks for kids and teachers, of course the right wing assholes spurred on by tucker carlson and the kochs, are standing outside schools screaming at children to take off their masks and that masks are just like “raping” children and are filing bogus child abuse charges against these schools and in some cases even parents. What the hell is wrong with these people? In what universe is it okay to attack a 6 year old for following the rules? It was found the other day that the koch right wing networks of think tanks and websites have been sending out instructions to their followers how to attack school boards that mandate masks and other mitigation measures to keep children safe…shouldn’t this be a crime? It should be if is isn’t…these are assaults and these brainwashed assholes need to be held accountable…and especially tucker who daily exhorts his watchers to violence against anyone who would take away their “freedoms”…but, as all of the right these days, the hypocrisy runs high in ole tucker, he and every one at fox “news” has to be vaccinated or they can’t get in the building…seems like a “mandate” to me…I wonder why tucker isn’t walking a picket line outside his studio to protest? We all know the answer to that…they love manipulating the rubes that watch their crappy shows and get their jollies from them being assholes to other Americans who are doing the right things in the pandemic…and that is what’s wrong with these people…geez…
Dump AT&T and direct tv…
Well…the world news service Reuters is out with a new report that shows that AT&T and it’s subsidiary direct tv created and is still supporting the right wing hoax news channel OANN….you know the one, the channel that is all hoaxes and conspiracy theories and anti vaxxers that daily undermines our democracy with constant stories about “election fraud” that doesn’t exist. They also use the channel as an in house propaganda network that heaps praise on AT&T constantly and helps them get the government to do what they want…like when they bought direct tv and needed government approval of the merger….now, AT&T has been at his kind of crap since before time essentially when they were part of the old Bell network and they are the primary funders of the Texas repubs that just ended women’s rights to control their own bodies there….and they are still funding the idiot trump and the thugs that tried to overthrow the government and who are still at it…so, if you have AT&T as your cell provider or direct tv as your tv provider, switch since every dollar you give them helps undermine this country and helps repubs make women second class citizens….there are better companies out there to give your money to…geez…
Still late….
Well…damn, started the day off late and I’m still running late now and it’s almost 3…and I can’t find a topic, either…I could talk about the debt ceiling crisis that appears to be pushed back a couple of months with a deal that allows the government to function until the end of December…and I think that is bullshit and the dems always give in…they should have ended the filibuster for good and told McConnell to go to hell with his obstruction…after all, the debt ceiling being raised is to pay for the 7 trillion dollars of debt that ole mitch and the idiot boy saddled the country with by cutting taxes on the rich and corporations…it not to pay for anything that the country needs and that the dems are trying to get fixed…I think I’m too tired to care much about it, though….can’t work up the outrage I normally have for this kind of stuff…and the two rides I did today were probably the most brutal I’ve had in a long time…going into the wind that was blowing about 20 out of the east and my legs hurt the whole way….and they still hurt now just sitting here…okay, this one was pretty jumbled but that’s how my brain feels right now….
I’m glad the progressives are pushing…
Well….finally, the progressive part of our caucus is pushing hard to get the infrastructure and other bills that will help ordinary Americans passed and are telling the “centrists” to come along or get out of the way…and I am glad to hear that…it’s about time that legislation is being built that doesn’t pander to the rich or the deficit scolds who wring their hands that we are adding to the national debt…it doesn’t matter when interest rates are almost negative and everyone knows that but the preening centrists want to look like they are the ones who are thinking about debt for the good of the country….and they love to have people kiss their butts to compromise…but it is not time for compromise, it’s time to go big to fix this country and make sure we can protect the right to vote….and that can’t be compromised…either you do that or you lose the country and the rest of this is just bullshit….so go progressives…the fate of the country is in your hands…geez…
They’ve lost the Chamber of Commerce…
Well…if you didn’t think the modern repub party has become a radical cult, you just have to look at the news from this morning where the repubs have stopped the C of C from being part of any repub gathering, fundraising, etc….and it’s because there are still some sane repubs in the organization who still can determine facts and want what is best for the country…like supporting the recovery act that Biden pushed through congress and supporting vaccines and mandates along with the infrastructure bill that is wending it’s way through congress. So, we now know for certain that the modern repubs don’t give a damn about this country, only the repub cult that has gone so far to the right they have left the ultra conservative C of C behind…and I think that is a good thing…the C of C realizes that the only sane party left that they can work with is the dems and maybe this will be another nail in the coffin of the crazy assed repubs who would tear this country down just to spite the dems…at least we can hope…geez…