Ode to the Sub-GED Class

To anyone paying attention, it's clear that wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024 continues to bet on the sub-GED class to come through, yet again.

Now we find that he's out to poison the blood of the electorate by seeing to it that knuckledraggers without any education or identifiable skill will get paid as much as teachers or accountants or coders. All of whom do have education and skill; well, may be not so much for coders. But you get the idea. Idiot Brown Shirts will rule.

But Mr. Lighthizer dismissed studies critical of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, describing them as biased in favor of free trade and arguing that inflation had held steady during the administration. He also said that while efficiency, profits and low prices were important, the priority should be encouraging more manufacturing jobs for Americans without college degrees.

Well, no one who's had at least high school econ would believe that China, et al, pays extra on their exports. It's the American consumer, of course. There's that great line from "The Usual Suspects"

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that... he is gone.

Studies have decided that imports are a net benefit to the sub-GED knuckledraggers from all those Asian locales.

The Orange Jesus may well be convincing some of the sub-GED crowd that he's on their side (Not!), but it's fur shur that no one else is biting. Of course, the sub-GED crowd is rather large in many/most/all of the so-called Swing States. As mentioned in these missives a few times, Sleepy Joe 'won' by 7,000,000 votes, but he squeaked by with 5-digit margins in those Swing States. And much of that 7,000,000 difference (~5,000,000) came in California. Another reason the Electoral College was a sop to the slave south.

The Oracle of Atlanta

The news has it that JN.1 is already dominant (44.2%) and could get near to Covid-Ο's massive peak. Not claiming that it will meet it. But there's a problem: that assertion is based on CDC's "Nowcast" figure for this week, and that's a stat estimate. The Nowcast is two periods (4 weeks) out from the last 'hard data'. Version 2 of this missive will see how accurate it turns out to be.

I Told You Fucking So - 15 December 2023

Well, boy howdy, but at long last, we find out that the Spooks really do know what really happened in 2016. Too bad they didn't tell us in 2016 before Comey gave the election to the Orange Jesus. Not that this is news here.

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government's assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN.

May be that Christopher Steele isn't such a damn liar, after all? As I said from the beginning, they ain't be nuthin that da NSA don't know the foreigners are sayin, or e-mainlin, or textin, or anyting else. No wonder the Orange Jesus shredded it.

To quote our Dear Leader, Sleepy Joe: this is a big fucking deal.

By The Numbers - part the thirty eighth

Performance inflation is everywhere. Well... except when it's in your venue, and there it's because you and yours are now so much better with no help from Da Man. Two examples:

Yale's been dinked for giving out A's like Christmas candy

Nearly 80 percent of all grades given to undergraduates at Yale last academic year were A's or A minuses, part of a sharp increase that began during the coronavirus pandemic and appears to have stuck

Now, if you go and read the report, you'll find that Yale isn't an outlier, nor are the Ivys a group outlier. It's everywhere. It's been a bugbear for decades, going back to, at least, my undergraduate time many decades ago. And, so far as that all goes, now that college atheletes (in the Upper Level schools) can be paid directly (well, it's not likely to get stopped), how soon will they no longer even be required to take classes and get grades? Already, may haps?

Schools with "the most financial resources and the biggest brands" would form a new subdivision that could set its own rules for roster size, recruitment and transfers.

OTOH, it is today announced that the arbiters of Golf have decided that players, especially professionals, have been blasting through par like A bombs. And, of course, that has been going on for years. The R&A and USGA have been trying to keep the ball in play where the course designers intended. So, now (well, in a few years) golf balls are expressly limited in how far they can go under specified test conditions

The longest hitters are expected to see a reduction of as much as 13-15 yards in drive distance. Average professional tour and elite male players are expected to see a reduction of 9-11 yards, with a 5-7-yard reduction for an average LPGA or Ladies European Tour (LET) player.

And, of course, this isn't the first time the arbiters got outraged by a cool new ball.

One might argue that Ivy grade inflation and golfer driving distance inflation aren't the same. But the fact is, for golfers, the arbiters have allowed ever more clever ways for equipment manufacturers (clubs and balls) to make everyone special. It's not often they put down the hammer ('anchoring' a long putter being tossed is the only other edict I recall at the tip of my tongue), so golfers should be happy. Most other sports, and college atheletes in particular, are more actively governed.

Cottage Cheese - Redux

Truly dedicated readers will recall the prediction that commerical real estate was skating on thin ice. Yes, they are.

Well, some of those chickens are now roosting in plain sight. And, as usual, the NYT has the numbers.

About 23 percent of office space in the United States was vacant or available for sublet at the end of November, according to Avison Young, a real estate services firm, compared with 16 percent before the pandemic.

So, what to do? What to do?

Office landlords, hit hard by the work-from-home revolution, are resorting to a desperate measure in the real estate world: "handing back the keys."

Well, as is obvious, that just means the owner just defaults on the loan(s). Would that civilians could get away with that:

But there's a difference: Big property companies can keep doing business after they default, and are even considered savvy for jettisoning distressed buildings.

Homeowners who stopped paying their mortgages, though, suffered a huge hit to their credit ratings and had to find somewhere else to live.