Category Archives: Business

“My Plan To Fix Inflation Is To…. Do Nothing”

Old Fool Biden (OFB) penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal describing his THREE point approach to fixing the inflation problem for the country. He then sent all of his top officials to the media to tout the wonderful plan.

Here are the THREE points of the PLAN (or as Veep Kammy would say, “Ze Plan”)

1. Respect the Federal Reserve Bank. OFB said that he will not criticize the actions of the Fed, “unlike my predecessor”, the Bad Orange Man. The Fed is an independent organization of which he has no control other than to critique their actions. Bottom line OFB is saying, DO NOTHING.

2. Wait for Congress to pass his Build Back Better plan to give away more money in the form of Clean Energy Tax Credits, have Medicare negotiate lower drug prices, and spend more on a myriad of other programs. All of this takes an act of Congress. Bottom line is OFB will DO NOTHING.

3. Raise taxes on corporations and high income earners. OFB says raising taxes on corporations and high income earners will reduce the deficit which will lower inflation. Raising corporate taxes will serve to make our nation LESS COMPETITIVE in the global economy and disincentive investment in the US. In any case, changing the tax laws requires Congress to act. Bottom line is OFB will DO NOTHING.

What a wonderful plan. Three “actions” that requires the administration to DO NOTHING and these will magically fix the inflation problem. DO NOTHING and it will all get better is what the Old Fool running our country is telling you.

Toys?

I attended and open house event at a major manufacturer of Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machines. They were demonstrating robots to automate production and run the machines “lights out”, that is overnight without any human interaction.

I asked a sales rep how business has been going during this “age of COVID“. The rep told me that business has been BOOMING. They are selling machines as fast as they can make them. The rep said right now lead time on a new machine is 20 weeks. They are also having supply chain issues. The rep mentioned that they too are suffering from the chip shortage as they can’t get everything to build up the “computer controllers” for the machines.

I asked the rep what sectors were creating the demand for machines and the response was quite interesting. The rep said that the “TOY manufacturers” are buying up machines. The definition of “TOYS” is not Barbies and Hot Wheels, but  gun parts, automotive accessories, and other flashy accessory bits. The rep speculated that all of the COVID relief money, rent relief, loan forgiveness, and extended unemployment benefits made millennials who live with their parents, flush with cash, and they ended up spending all the “virus” money buying “TOYS”.  The rep also said the medical manufacturing sector was up as well, which makes sense.

The only sector mentioned which had a downturn on machine purchases was aerospace/aircraft manufacturing.  Speculation is that the airlines weren’t buying new planes when air travel was almost nonexistent during the virus crisis compounded by Boeings ongoing issues with the 737 Max.

I spoke at length with a vendor of fixtures which increases the productivity of the CNC machines and he also said that demand is up for “TOYS“. He too said that the “gun guys” demand for parts is higher than he’s ever seen it before. He’s been in the industry for over 40 years.

Interesting data points.

Lunch Bucket Joe need to give out more money for “TOYS“.

Your Data Is Secure, We Promise

Apple assures us that data kept on their iCloud servers is secure.

Here are some statements direct from Apple.  

iCloud is built with industry-standard security technologies, employs strict policies to protect your information, and is leading the industry by adopting privacy-preserving technologies like end-to-end encryption for your data.”  and, 

All sessions at iCloud.com are encrypted with TLS 1.2. Any data accessed via iCloud.com is encrypted on server as indicated in this table.” and,

No one else, not even Apple, can access end-to-end encrypted information

You can read it at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Okay, so Apple is CONFIDENT and PUBLICLY swears all you data is secure from prying eyes.  Even APPLE cannot access your data.

Well here’s some interesting news.

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani, claims that while acting as the personal ATTORNEY to President Trump, his iCloud data was surveilled and taken between May 1, 2018 and November 2019, by the FBI. He claims his attorney was informed of this by the FBI. The FBI claims that the surveillance and data capture was LEGAL because a covert warrant was issued as part of a criminal investigation, to obtain said data.

The big question to me is, HOW DID THE FBI GET DATA FROM THE iCloud SERVERS?

Again in Apple’s own words, “NO ONE ELSE, NOT EVEN APPLE can access … encrypted information.”

Huh?

What this indicates is that Apple does have a “BACK DOOR” into the data on their servers and that they cooperate with anyone who is AGAINST REPUBLICANS.  How do we know they are against Republicans?  Let’s look at who they do protect.

We know Apple is PRO TERRORIST. On Dec. 2, 2015 TERRORISTS Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people and injured 22 more during an attack on a Christmas party, in San Benardino, CA. After the TERRORISTS were killed in a gun battle with law enforcement, TWO iPhones were recovered. The iPhones may have contained information to other terrorist activities. The NSA was not able to bypass Apple’s encryption of the iPhone data nor were they, I assume, able to recover it from the iCloud. The FBI asked Apple to help them recover the data. Apple DECLINED to help due to its policy to never undermine the security features of its products.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, stated, “We have a responsibility to protect your data and your privacy. We will not shrink from this responsibility“.

Apple protects TERRORISTS but seemingly NOT REPUBLICANS.

Your data is secure as long as you’re NOT a REPUBLICAN.