The Wind Up and The Pig – SKN 2, Wonder Sites

Are your balls getting ready to drop? My, all this time I thought that was earlier in life. But sneaking up on 76, things in the world do look a little bit, uh, different.

Take the National Debt. When Elaine was born in 1943, the National Debt was $142.6 billion. By the time I came along (1949) it was swollen to $252-billion. Still, we had just fought the biggest World War in history.

The U.S. population in 1950 was 151,325,798. That 1949 debt worked out to $1,665 per person. To wheel that into the spotlight, the average new car in 1950 was going for $1,300 for a Henry J all the way up to $3,149. So my coffee-addled wetware pencils out the National Debt Problem to “an extra car payment for five-years and it would be gone. We could have remained on Honest Money. The kind the Founders put into the Constitution only later to be swindled by the Banksters.

For even clearer perspective: Today’s National Debt comes in two flavors. One without interest that can’t be avoided. And the “real” all-in costs. The low-ball number is $36.574 trillion while the (other, unspeakable real cost of high crimes and treason) is $157.777 trillion as of press time.

U.S. population has grown a bit too. But, nowhere near enough to spread out all this financial pain. The U.S. population today is very roughly (since no one will admit to not counting illegals) is 346,346,203. Which means if we use the “principle only” debt is $105,559 thousand each.

We know the average price of a new car is a little high, too. We are up to an average nowadays of $48,397. Which means that in order to pay off the National Debt today, we would each need to pay off an additional 2 and a quarter car payments monthly. And with higher rates on unpaid balances, it would be a 60-90 month deal.

While the Fed pretends its rates are meaningful (and they are, actually) you’d never know it from looking at credit card fine print. Where the card-scammers quickly get up over 20-percent. It’s part of a whole conspiracy to keep the herd in line. “Sex and Glitter” ads drive us to consume more. Ripping retained wealth out of our real estate via HELOCs is condoned. But don’t overdo it – because once you trigger those high card rates, the skids are greeted for Bankruptcy.

We admit (being old and ~~lazy~~ efficient) to asking A.I. about things now and then. “According to data from the U.S. Courts, in 2024, there are expected to be around 481,350 personal bankruptcies, representing a 16.2% increase compared to 2023.”

The St. Louis Fed keeps an eye on such things. And one of the shockers was that when Elaine and I were popped out of the oven, bankruptcies were very rare. Maybe as low as 1 in 20,000 or lower. Today on the other hand, we have a “bankruptcy industry.”

“Personal bankruptcies in the United States have had a dynamic history over the past 100 years. Bankruptcy filings in the first half of the 20th century averaged 0.15 per 1,000 people and grew at an average annual rate of 2.4 percent. Bankruptcies began to increase during the 1960s and have grown dramatically since 1980. Between 1980 and 2004, bankruptcies grew at an annual average rate of 7.6 percent a year. As of 2004, the filing rate was 5.3 per 1,000 people, more than four times the 1980 rate and nearly 80 times the 1920 rate.“

Pretty good for a country that “doesn’t have debtor prisons.”

Instead, we have homeless and street crime. All while the real thugs are running social policy.

Don’t mean to end the year on a sour note. Just reminding you that Reality is still out there. We are all getting on the economic elevator every day heading for the “top floor.” And when we get there, a year from now, we will (statistically) all get out on the ground floor, not understanding the elevator ride swindle any better than we do now.

Yet, it will be called Progress.

Similarly, World War Two required that America become the world’s leader in manufacturing. But again, when Elaine and I sit down with the afternoon glass of “thinking juice” we both remember when one person working at an average (maybe union job) could raise a family. Mom’s raised kids who – in turn – did better in school and seemed to benefit from the at-home supervision a great deal. One history oriented sites, you can find snips like this one:

“Though women were in the workforce before the war, during WWII, more than 6 million of them engaged in industrial work. Though many of those female employees were forced to leave their jobs when men returned to the Home Front, millions continued to work outside the home after the war ended.”

It was dressed up as “workplace equality” but Elaine’s held to the view that women ought to have more say in the matter. Even now, the Blob is down on home-schooling and stay at home parenting.

An Inconvenient Observation

When I look at the economic system, it’s clear that our “financial overlords” are engaged in massive social engineering. Wrapped up in jingoism like “A rising tide lifts all ships” the impact on some racial subgroups has been pronounced. Although it’s considered bad form to ask (by the radical left in particular) A.I. will tell you this if asked:

“Yes, the white birth rate in the United States has been declining:

Number of births:

From 1999 to 2016, the number of white births fell by 10.8%.
Triplet and higher-order births: From 1998 to 2023, the decline in triplet and higher-order birth rates for white mothers was 71%.
Minority births: Non-Hispanic whites now account for a minority of births in the U.S.

The decline in white births is part of a broader decline in the U.S. birth rate, which has been happening since the Great Recession in 2007.

The decline is due to lower childbearing rates across all groups, including:

Women in their early 20s, late 20s, and teens
White women, Black women, and Hispanic women
Women with and without college degrees
Married and unmarried women
Other factors that have contributed to the decline in the U.S. population include: Fewer immigrants and Baby boomers entering older ages.”

My, what a fine picture of Progress we have achieved in recent years. Maybe – and only maybe – with a less radical (even more rational) administration coming to power, things will improve.

Trump had one “swing at the pinata” already and little changed. The Deep State is likely less a collection of socialist bureaucrats than an assortment of colliding intractable trends. In the end, though?

Ask me in a year.

Paper on Fire

We will be back with the Housing numbers in part 2 of this morning’s ramble. But, before Housing, our Aggregate Index was still sawing logs and looking weak.

As should be clear, we’re walking up the underside of the trend channel. When this happens, it’s called “kissing the underside of trend.” Often, though not always, the move in direction of trend resumes. But to us it looks like a potential top, but that’s before eggnog and not financial advice.

Bitcoin – which was under $94,000 in yesterday’s report, is back above but still south of $95,000. But there’s more hype than you’ll find from door-to-door religionists on this. If you’re still trying to understand it all, head to How Bitcoin ETFs helped disrupt traditional finance in 2024 as a starting point. Then continue into Trump’s Crypto Vision: US Set to Become Global Leader in Digital Assets. But just remember, he’s a real estate developer at heart…

Morning Histrionics

Blood pressure a little low? Let me help! A lot of media hype is just what the cardiologist might say to avoid, but here we go…

Everyone talks about the weather, but… Polar vortex headed for United States will bring ‘exceptionally cold’ temps in the new year: ‘Weather models are screaming’. No, actually, they aren’t screaming at all. We are 1) in Winter and 2) in this part of Texas the long range forecasts show just under freezing a few days. Not exactly a Day After Tomorrow plot-line. But slug down a triple-shot Americano tall with a shake and…uh…

It’s a gag, right? Exclusive | Trump team orders ‘all intended nominees’ to stop posting on social media ahead of Senate confirmations.

Sloppy Joe is at it again – with YOUR checkbook: Biden Is Sending $6B to Ukraine.

Woke goes for broke as People are now coming out as ‘symbiosexual’. Wonder if IRS would ever recognize three-party marriages? Oh boy….

Not related – but in today’s world you never know – “We need to change cows.” Bill Gates boasts all the different ways he is “changing cows”… I am proud to say we’re joining Gates in this fiasco. Why, here in a couple of hours, I will be changing a three-rib standing prime into a 145F delight. Think that will help?

Media Cover-up du jour: Screaming rise in all cause mortality: Joe Rogan: “If the media was legitimate, they would be talking about one of the biggest crises… Go ahead, take a shot at why?

But wait! Didn’t I tell you “Pandemic II in Q2“? Here Comes the Untested mRNA Bird Flu Non-Vaccine Vaccine… What was the rock and roll advice? “Shoot if it makes you feel good…” wasn’t it. Janis?

At the Ranch: Eats – SKN2 – Wonder Sites

Pappy Ure always used to say “Your stomach doesn’t know you’re not rich…” Neither does my liver.

A light breakfast today of Chinese pot stickers. Low carb, high protein. Then a trip to the store to pick up the missing pieces:

Highlighting will be crab. There’s a crab salad we like and some frozen snow crab legs which will make for a good (bit messy) appetizer.
Fresh salads and “collosal” shrimp on them.
Tonight’s main course that standing rib roast at 145F
Yukon’s in the air fryer
And even after all these years, a glass of Sutter Home white zin is good.

SKN Preps will fill in the time between.

I picked up a used SpiRo low band trap sloper antenna a while back. Turned out to have a bad 160 meter trap, so may be able to get that repaired and drone -lifted to run it as a long trap vertical. Idea is to drive that from the 180 room with a Kenwood 430 and a hand key.

Time will be of the essence, though. And I may just postpone the wine room build and run with the 40-meter version of the W5GI that K4TR built for me. That and the Omni VII is the zero work, always ready option.

MTC has some good deals going until tonight. Picked up a Yaesu YA-30 antenna – which is a terminated folded dipole and while not great on transmit, they are very quiet on receive and frequency agile for ALE and whatnot.

Those links to eHam.net reviews are available for all kinds of ham gear. If you’re a newbie and not clear on what works, you can do worse than limiting purchases to products rated 4.5 or higher. My Kenwood 430 is not as highly rated as the more recent TS-590S, but that’s likely because the former is very “old school” while the latter is a current production run with tons of DSP and software options.