Category Archives: Government

Stuff you may or may not know about your local, state, and federal government

Government, Politics

Supreme Gift For Joe Biden

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Today the Supreme Court of The United States upheld the stay on Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. The Court in a 6-3 decision said that Executive Branch could NOT use the regulatory power of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to, in Ron Klains words, “work around the Constitution” and issue health mandates to private businesses.

Republican politicians and conservative news outlets such as Fox News were touting this as another failure of the Biden administration and a victory for freedom and liberty.

What all these conservative talking heads are missing is that the decision by SCOTUS is a HUGE GIFT to Joe Biden. The Court handed him an Ace, a “get out of jail free” card that he can keep in his pocket. Biden can pull this Ace out if the virus pandemic goes South on him. This decision will allow Joe Biden to say, “C’mon man, I had a FOOL PROOF PLAN to shut down the virus but SCOTUS prevented me from executing my PLAN.  If my plan had been implemented, the virus would have 100% been eliminated.“

There is no way to prove Biden wrong. Play the “Get out of jail free” card and blame ANY disastrous turn of the virus on the Court. “It’s the Courts fault and all those Trump appointed justices, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch that are making you suffer and your loved ones to die.  This is why we need to realign the Supreme Court”. 

If they play this right, they can blame almost anything wrong on this decision. 

Supply chain issues.  “Look, look, the shelves are bare in stores because my plan to “shut down” the virus wasn’t implemented because of the Supreme Court’s decision” 

Voting rights.  “No joke.  We need to have Federal election laws because states are suppressing you right to vote, by not allowing universal mail-in voting during this continuing pandemic, created by the Supreme Court”.

Any problem can be blamed on the virus because of the Supreme Court’s decision.

This is NOT a failure for the administration. This is one SUPREME GIFT to Joe Biden.

Business, Government, Technology

Toys?

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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“.