Sunday, October 13
Saturday, October 12
Am I Better Off Today?
This seems to be the question that is on most people's minds because the media keeps asking this question...
In 2015, my wife I retired and in 2016, Donald Trump became President. We were energy independent, and gas was fairly inexpensive. When we went to Perkins Restaurant for Brunch, I ordered an everything omelet (at least 2 eggs). breakfast potatoes, and 3 buttermilk pancakes for $9.95. At Cheddars, I would order an 8oz grilled Salmon on a bed of rice, a baked potato, and broccoli for $11.95.
In 2024, we are not energy independent, my Perkins everything omelet+ costs $16.95 and my Salmon+ costs $18.50.
That is a huge increase in just 8 years...
When my wife and I retired, we were DEBT FREE. We still are debt free, even though our costs of living have increased about $1,200 more each month. Our property taxes have doubled in value and IS NOT COUNTED in our cost-of-living increases.
HOWEVER...
my wife and I are living off of Social Security and our savings and fortunately for us, we have been able to save enough money to cover these increases in our expenses...
BECAUSE...
we were able to cover our expense increases, we are no better or no worse off in 2024 than we were in 2015/2016.
THEREFORE...
neither of us understand the question nor do we understand how people are suffering so much when there is not much suffering going on in East TN.
PLUS...
my wife and I are living on Social Security and Savings and these other people are working full time.
Our guess is that these people were WAY INTO DEBT before COVID hit and it is this debt that they are having trouble addressing.
If a couple or individual has a bunch of debt and then has to pay rent or a mortgage, plus car payments, it is very difficult to pay other monthly expenses in they increase by $1,000 like they did on us here in TN.
Most working Americans LIVE ABOVE THEIR NEEDS so when a downturn happens, a sickness, a layoff, or inflation, it is natural that they would have trouble paying their bills.
I also find it rather interesting and humorous that no matter how bad one's financial situation is... they always have money to buy cigarettes and alcohol...
THINK ABOUT THAT.
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Author Han Kang, best known for surreal novel "The Vegetarian," becomes South Korea's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; Han previously won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize in 2016 (More)
> Sean "Diddy" Combs makes first court appearance in sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy case; judge sets May 2025 trial start date (More)
> Disney World and Universal Orlando to reopen today after Hurricane Milton forced rare closures (More) | ... and Tropicana Field, home to baseball's Tampa Bay Rays, may take weeks to assess damage done after its roof was torn off during the storm (More)
Science & Technology
> Apple unveils Depth Pro, an AI-powered application calculating the depth of scenes represented in two-dimensional images (More) | Previews of Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro continue to be shared online; analysts say it marks the company's worst leak since an iPhone 4 was left at a bar in 2010 prior to consumer release (More)
> Engineers develop the world's most powerful electron "gun," capable of accelerating the particles from rest to 80% the speed of light; beam system will help investigate the physics of individual atoms (More)
> Solar storm reaches Earth, causes aurora borealis along parts of the US West Coast; radiation burst from the sun triggered the second-ever warning from the National Weather Service (More) | Solar storms 101 (More)
Business & Markets
> TD Bank agrees to pay $3B in penalties, faces limits on US growth in settlement with US regulators over bank's failure to monitor drug cartel money laundering; TD Bank shares close down 5% on news of largest-ever penalty imposed by the US on a bank for antimoney laundering violations (More)
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq -0.0%) following latest US inflation and jobless claims data (More)
> US average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rises to 6.3%, up from 6.1% in the previous week (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> At least 12 people dead, over 3 million without power after Hurricane Milton lands as Category 3 storm in Siesta Key, Florida, about 70 miles south of Tampa; storm dumped up to 18 inches of rain in some areas and spawned at least 150 tornadoes but fell short of worst-case scenario predictions (More) | See photos (More)
> Ethel Kennedy, social activist and widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D), who was assassinated in 1968, dies at age 96 after being hospitalized following a stroke in her sleep Oct. 3; Ethel never remarried and raised 11 children (More)
> More than 20 people killed, over 100 wounded in Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut, marking the third time Israel has targeted Lebanon's capital since beginning its recent offensive against Hezbollah (More) | See war updates (More)
About Death
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No one living likes to talk about death, not even when an elderly parent only has a few days to live. Of course, there are exceptions, especially when that parent has been suffering for months or even years... death is welcomed.
Parents, especially males, because of this fear of death and leaving the wife and children behind with no visible means of supports. takeout life insurance and while they now feel their family is protected, the only way that life insurance works is for them to die in the next couple of years.
But why do we fear death so much?
Death is an end to life and most of us really enjoy living but we all know that death is inevitable.
For those who are religious, they believe that when they die, they will spend the rest of eternity in heaven with God.
Perhaps they are right... or perhaps they are wrong. No one knows for sure... This is why they have faith.
What will life in heaven be like?
No one knows for sure.
- We can only speculate...
- We will not have a body
- We will not have a mind
- We will never be sick
- We will never need to eat
What we will be in unknown, but some believe that we will be in spirit form - the spirit form will be the essence of who we are or were.
Some believe in reincarnation so that we are reborn into the body of someone else or reborn into the body of an animal.
Some believe, we our atoms simply flow back into the universe or dissolve back into the ground. This is not practical if our bodies are put into caskets and lowered into the ground.
It works if we are cremated.
Now what if you don't believe in religion but do believe in a CREATOR?
AND... that this creator is an extraterrestrial?
AND... that this extraterrestrial creator altered our DNA so that human beings would evolve the way they did rather than another way?
Does that mean that this extraterrestrial creator has possession of our souls (our essence or spirit)?
If they possess our SOULS, what do they do with our SOULS once we are dead?
EIGHT-Billion-Year-Old Space Signal
Recently, astronomers made an astonishing discovery — a mysterious and powerful burst of radio waves reached Earth after traveling through space for 8 billion years. Dubbed FRB 20220610A, it is one of the most distant and energetic radio signals ever observed.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs), including this particular one, are extremely intense flashes of radio waves that last only milliseconds, yet their origins remain a source of great intrigue and perplexity. We still don’t know what, or who, sends these energy bursts.
The nature of these signals challenges our understanding of the universe, as they can originate from regions far beyond our Milky Way galaxy, hinting at processes and events that we are only beginning to comprehend.
Dr. Stuart Ryder, an esteemed astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia, is among the dedicated team of scientists working diligently to unravel the mysteries surrounding this cosmic enigma.
Through advanced technologies and collaborative efforts, they aim to decode the origins and implications of these fast radio bursts, potentially unlocking new insights into the fundamental workings of our universe and the forces that shape it. READ MORE...
Friday, October 11
Discovery
It all started in 1972, when I was discharged from the US Navy early to return to college and finish my last two years. Before class, I would stop by either Hardees of McDonalds for a cup of coffee to prepare for my morning classes - refills were free.
In 1980, I discovered, quite by accident, that a small Hardees cup held as much liquid as a large McDonalds cup. Since a small cup at Hardees was cheaper than a large cup at McDonalds, I began getting my coffee at Hardees, even though the refills were still free.
Several years later, I began teaching Total Quality Management classes to industry and their employees mainly through team-oriented problem-solving classes (TOP) and used the two cups as examples as to how companies attempt to deceive the public to make money.
Today, 2024, forty-four years later, companies are still using this technique to charge higher prices. The Styrofoam cups that they are using are not just angled differently but are thinner. While most of America's coffee is not being purchased at convenience stations where fresh coffee is being perked with each cup, these companies are still using the cup technique to make a few extra pennies on each cup sold.
The two companies that I checked out recently were FASTOP and Weigle's. Twenty ounces is twenty ounces no matter how it is weighed, assuming the scales are accurate. However, if the cup size is different with its thickness and angles, it APPEARS that one is getting more with the taller cup.
It is that appearance concept on which these companies are counting.
It's All Relative
RELATIVE - considered in relation or in proportion to something else.
EAST TENNESSEE has been my home for the last 34 years, after moving over here from NC in 1990. I lived in NC from 1966-1989 (23 years) after moving down from VA.
The reason for my move in 1990 was that in NC my skills were a dime a dozen and in East TN, there was only one other person with my skills. This gave me the advantage and a marketable edge for the next twenty years. My second wife and I retired FIVE years later after spending my last three years teaching business classes at a local university.
In East TN, one can live very comfortable on $3.000 to $3.500/ month providing that one has NO DEBT. As it turns out, in 2015 when we retired, my wife and I had been debt free since 2000.
Our monthly expenses would be almost twice that amount in NC where I used to live and more than that, the farther north one lived. However, the salaries and wages are higher there too.
Our $300,000 home would be twice that amount in certain places up north and more than twice that amount in certain places out west.
From what I read and hear, crime and violence is higher up north and even in larger cities down south like Charlotte, NC and Nashville, TN... so, it is difficult to escape that entirely... other than, less crime happens in the country rather than the city.
What sells me on this place in East TN is the available land and homes are not built so close together that there is barely enough room for a riding lawn mower to pass.
East TN has several lakes, parks and recreation areas made available to the public by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that actually started during the Great Depression to put people to work. This area is IDEAL for campers, hikers, boaters, and people who like to fish.
While there are lakes and recreational facilities up north, the area is more densely populated and the temperatures prevent most of these facilities from being used after September, whereas, East TN temps are mild, most of the time, through Christmas.
As mentioned in the beginning... IT'S ALL RELATIVE... but there are hundreds of people that are now moving down south to get away from the:
- COLD
- HIGHER TAXES
- TRAFFICE & PEOPLE
- CRIME & VIOLENCE
- ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> The 2024 WNBA Finals kick off tonight (8 pm ET, ESPN) with the New York Liberty taking on the Minnesota Lynx in a best-of-five series (More)
> Vogue reveals theme for 2025 Met Gala, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," and names co-chairs: Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams (More)
> Seattle Kraken's Jessica Campbell becomes NHL's first full-time female assistant coach (More) | 2024 MLB Division Series ongoing; see latest playoff bracket and schedule (More)
Science & Technology
> Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to trio of researchers for developing AI applications, including Google's DeepMind, to predict protein structure and folding (More) | Literature prize announced at 7 am ET this morning; see selection (More)
> Tesla CEO Elon Musk to unveil company's new driverless robotaxi during live event tonight at 10 pm ET; deployment timeline for the "cybercab" not yet revealed (More)
> Consuming fewer calories linked to increased life span in mice, large-scale study finds; results suggest the benefits of dietary restriction extend to improved immune health, genetics factors, and more (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close higher (S&P 500 +0.7%, Dow +1.0%, Nasdaq +0.6%); S&P 500 and Dow notch fresh records as tech stocks—led by Super Micro Computer—continue to rally (More)
> Mining giant Rio Tinto announces it will acquire lithium miner Arcadium Lithium for $6.7B; Arcadium shares close up 31% on the news (More)
> Ratan Tata, former chair of India's oldest conglomerate, Tata Sons, dies at age 86; Tata Sons is the holding company for Tata Group, which oversees nearly 100 companies and acquired British Jaguar and Land Rover for $2.3B from Ford in 2008 (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> President Joe Biden holds call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid expectations for Israeli response to Iranian missiles last week (More) | See updates on war (More)
> North Korea announces it will cut off all roads and rail lines to South Korea and "permanently" block the border; announcement comes after months of missile tests, trash balloons (More)
> The Tropicana, Las Vegas' third-oldest hotel-casino, demolished in controlled implosion to make space for $1.5B Major League Baseball stadium (More, w/video) | See previous write-up (More)
DIVIDED WE FALL
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There are MILLIONS of people who want Donald Trump to lose the November 2024 election and there are Millions of people who want him to win.
The USA is DIVIDED...
Some say Trump will create a strong economy and build America back up again while some say Trump will destroy America and its democracy.
While no one really knows what will happen, there are those of us out there who will accept whatever happens to our country.
Here's what I know:
ONE
The Democrats want a large federal government and want to give the American people more than what they currently have.
That COSTS money.
Social programs RAISE TAXES.
TWO
The Democrats want more and more ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS to enter the USA and while that may or may not help them politically, illegal immigration will change the CULTURE of America and will alter the QUALITY and COST of living.
THREE
The Democrats want go green energy and do away with gasoline, and while some people will lose their jobs, others will gain employment... so, it is a wash out.
However:
- eliminating gasoline will hurt the economy
- eliminating gasoline will strain our current power grid
- eliminating gasoline is not supported by the building of EV charging stations
- eliminating gasoline is not what the rest of the world is going to do because it is expensive
- Russia
- China
- Iran
- North Korea
- The Middle East
- India
- one year from now
- five years from now
- seven or more years from now
New Memorial
For nearly 100 years, Robert E. Lee's 10,000-pound monument rode high over the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. Now, it's been melted into bronze slabs and another memorial in town has risen to national prominence.
It's on the University of Virginia campus, titled the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. It stands as the antithesis to the Confederacy, honoring the slaves forced to work at the university in the 1800s as carpenters, blacksmiths, roofers, stone carvers and other back-breaking trades.
"All these men, women, and children lived with dignity, resisted oppression, and aspired for freedom. For more than four decades, the entire University was a site of enslavement," according to the UVA President's Commission on Slavery. "Now, we’re confronting our past, uncovering new knowledge, and using that knowledge to teach, heal, and shape the future." READ MORE...