All posts by Lonewriter

Government, Technology, World Affairs

Why The Chinese Sent A Spy Balloon

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There’s a high altitude BALLOON floating around our country with SPY equipment on board. The Chinese claim that it’s a civilian research balloon that went awry.

The existence of this SPY BALLOON flying above our country raises several questions. Why was it not detected as it flew over Alaska? Why did the Canadians not report the balloon flying over THEIR COUNTRY? How is it that China can launch a craft as big a THREE SCHOOL BUSES, let it float across THOUSAND OF MILES of ocean, and we did not detect it? Was it launched from LAND or A SHIP?
The news media is speculating that this SPY BALLOON is looking at our nuclear weapons facilities. I say that’s a bunch of HOGWASH. The Chinese have enough high resolution imagery from their own and commercial satellites that this SPY BALLON would be of little use for that.

The SPY BALLOON is reported (by the Pentagon) to be flying at over 60,000 feet.  I would guess it’s more likely closer to 70,000.  The ALTITUDE is important. At 70,000 feet the SPY BALLOON would be above the JET STREAM and can loiter for long periods of time.  From some of the pictures it appears that the balloon payload has SOLAR PANELS indicating it was designed for a long duration deployment.  Once again ALTITUDE IS IMPORTANT. 

What can get up to 70,000 feet?  An F-16 has a service ceiling of 58,000 feet. Service ceiling is the point at which an aircraft can no long climb at over 100 feet per minute. An F-18 has a service ceiling of 52,300 feet. An F-15 has a service ceiling of 65,000 feet. An F-35 (Fat Amy, the latest multi-role fighter) has a service ceiling of only 50,000 feet. An F-22 has a service ceiling of 65,000 feet. IF the SPY BALLOON is at 70,000 feet we can only send up our latest fighters to take a look see from A MILE BELOW. It would be difficult to “shoot down” the SPY BALLOON from a MILE BELOW with our current inventory of fighters.  TWO F-22’s were scrambled out of Nellis AFB in Nevada to look at the SPY BALLOON. but they quickly returned back to base. The F-22’s could get the closest to peeking (not Peking) at the SPY BALLOON.

What are the Chinese hoping to discover? I believe that the Chinese are using this to find out our AVIATION CAPABILITIES. They are prodding to see if we have a new TOP SECRET AIRCRAFT flying. An aircraft with a SCRAMJET could reach those altitudes and I bet the COMMIES would be LOVE to take a bunch of pictures of our LATEST TOP SECRET AIRCRAFT as it intercepted their SPY BALLOON.

I hope our leaders are NOT SO STUPID that they fall for this ruse and show them what we have.

Who knows?  The plans for the TOP SECRET AIRCRAFT may have been safely stored in a Delaware garage next to a Corvette.

Culture, Government, Politics

New Math?

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On Martin Luther King Day, the Old Fool Biden pandered to the National Action Network, NAN demanding that no one should be incarcerated in Federal Prison for “simple marijuana possession”. This must be a HUGE injustice if the Old Fool made this an important talking point to the civil rights group (black community).

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons there are 148,975 prisoners incarcerated for various crimes against the state. The last time possession was broken out was in 2017 where of almost 150,000 prisoners, 92 were in for possession of any kind of drug. That would be 0.06% of the Federal prisoners. SIX ONE HUNDREDTH of ONE PERCENT. That’s right folks The Old Fool is making a priority for 0.00003% of the population.  Three in Ten Million.  To put this in perspective, the OLD FOOL is pandering to ONE PERSON in a city the size of LOS ANGELES.

How about worrying about the $32 TRILLION in National Debt that affects all of us?

Business, Culture, Finance

How Much Is Real?

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I was watching a report this morning on the collapse of FTX, the cyrpto exchange. Some pundits are stating that this bankruptcy, “is bigger than Enron“. Truth in lending, I have no holdings in crypto as I don’t understand it and what little I do, makes no sense to me. That said, there was a 20-something Gen-Z kid whining that he lost $2 million because of the collapse of FTX. My question when I hear people whining about their investment losses is, “how much of that is a real loss?“

The whiners, usually exaggerate how much loss they’ve suffered in order to sound sympathetic. During the Enron collapse, there was a young employee (I recall that she was a secretary) of the company who had her retirement savings 100% invested in Enron stock. She said she lost “a million dollars“ of her retirement when Enron collapsed. I always have questioned such numbers. How could she have legally invested “a million dollars” of capital into a retirement fund. If she was working for 5 years at Enron, she would have had to have a salary of around $450,000 per year to have “a million” to invest. $200,000 goes to taxes, $50,000 goes to living expenses, and then she’d have $200,000 to invest over 5 years. If she could earn $450,000 per year as a secretary, why the belly aching when she has another 40 plus years of her working life left. I suspect her “real” losses may have been around $20,000 at most.

The same goes for the Gen-Z kid moaning about his $2 million dollar loss in FTX. FTX peaked at $84.18, right now it’s trading at $1.88. If you use the peak numbers, the kid owned around 45,000 shares. Say he bought in around January of 2021 when FTX was around $5 per share he would have needed to invest around $225,000 which is by no means a small amount of money. In “real” dollars the kid would have suffered a loss of around $140,000 ($5 down to $1.88) which is a far “cry” less than $2 million. Even if the Gen-Z kid actually lost $2 million of cash because he bought at the peak, just earn another couple of million in the next 40 years of a working career and stop whining.  Investments have risks. Deal with it.

And don’t forget, these highly paid 20-somethings can write-off their “real” losses against earning of their 6-figure incomes.  And who pays for those write offs?  Well that would be you and me the taxpayers who didn’t invest in risky ventures.