First tragedy in Minnesota

 It is hard to watch the videos coming out of the tragic incident in Minneapolis, without forming conclusions.  Before you do, I would like to offer some observations on how you can help understand what you are seeing better.  First - the camera sees more than a person.  Your eyes tend to focus on a narrow field of view and a camera takes in a wider point of view.  This is why 2 people can look at the same scene and see two different things.  For example, as a driving instructor and racer,  I noticed in the officer’s video, that the steering wheel was being turned away from the officer, so I saw no intention to hit him.  Now, without being able to interview him, the question is, did he see that or was his focus somewhere else?  Where should his focus have been?  What was his state of mind?  How did the other officers contribute to the situation? Why did they not tell her to turn off the engine?  If so serious,  Did they escalate the situation? These are serious questions that are not easily determined no matter how much you watch a video.

When my son left the military, I spoke to the then Assistant Police Chief about getting him an interview to be a police officer.  He said he would be happy to have him apply, but that he had about 400 applicants for 12 positions at the time.  I asked if this was not a problem, but he said that since he had to make the decision of putting someone on the street with a gun, he would rather be able to pick who he wanted and trusted, rather than just take anyone.  The facts are that over 10,000 new ICE agents have been hired in 2025 with the training requirements cut in some cases by more than 50%.  These agents have been sent out with possibly unrealistic quotas so it should not be a surprise that incidents are occurring.  We are back to failure to plan is planning to fail. With deadly consequences.

This would be funny if not so tragic

Real Math does not lie:

About the National Debt

About the Trade Deficit

About Consumer Debt

About Productivity

We are in a storm of battling conditions.  AI is affecting the job market in a negative way, even if it is only in the robots and computer programs that at the same time are increasing productivity.  Consumer sentiment is inching up but still way down from the end of the Biden Administration. Consumers do not like chaos. Businesses do not like chaos.  Sixty-two percent of Americans have some money in stocks but the top 10% of households own about 87% to 93% of all stocks.  So most Americans are not benefiting from the high stock prices.  

Hmmm - Lets hear that again?

  After the 2025 elections, one of the Fox News commentators said that Mamdani is in trouble as he only got 50.4% of the vote and therefore should not assume he has a mandate.

He is absolutely right, I am looking at mandate numbers of 66% or more to even Think you might have a mandate.

BTW - even though Trump got 72% of the electoral votes in 2024, he only got 49.8% of the actual votes.

And you can think about it this way - with Curtis Sliwa getting less than 8% of the votes, that basically means Democrats got 92% of the vote. Of course we cannot tell who voted for Cuomo after the President told every one to, or did they vote on their own....

Pot meet Kettle

 "Pulte's focus on Cook's mortgage documentation is just the latest in a series of similar accusations against high-ranking Democrats, such as Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

He added in a second post, "If you commit mortgage fraud in America, we will come after you, no matter who you are." "

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-removing-federal-reserve-governor-lisa-cook-rcna227138

"Judge Arthur Engoron had ordered Trump to pay the fee for massively inflating the value of the Trump Organization's properties in order to secure favorable loans.

In the lengthy ruling released on Thursday, judges on the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division stated that while Trump was liable for the fraud, the fine of nearly half a billion dollars was excessive and probably violated constitutional protections against severe punishment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y09q1zgg8o

England swings like a pendulum do

Update:

The panel was disbanded due to a lawsuit:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/climate/trump-dissolves-contrarian-group

Oh dear.

=========================================================

I read an article about a new report  -

"A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse"  
Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate Report to U.S. Energy Secretary Christopher Wright
July 23, 2025 

This is what I wrote to the author of the article:

--------------------
Whatever happened to fact checking, disclaimers and backing up your claims with footnotes?

The five scientists - the Climate Working Group:

John Christy, Ph.D.

Judith Curry, Ph.D.

Steven Koonin, Ph.D.

Ross McKitrick, Ph.D.

Roy Spencer, Ph.D

Are all either climate change deniers or at the least climate change skeptics.

If I was to clone Michael Mann five times and have "them" write a report, you would dismiss it out of hand - as you should.

Stacking the Group does not make it more accurate.

I do believe there is room for debate but remember this: 

A pendulum is not a mode of transportation.

At best you just end up in the same place.

------------------

Rewriting History 8/8/2025

 Andy Biggs was on Fox talking about the redistricting in Texas.  He said that the only reason Democrats were in positions in Texas was BECAUSE of gerrymandering!  ?%!?

From November 2017:

“Even the way the electoral map is drawn has been an obstacle for Democrats, explained Kronberg.

“There’s currently a redistricting case in front of the United States Supreme Court, and nobody knows how that’s going to play itself out. If they’re forced to actually draw lines that reflect communities of interest, then it’s entirely possible that incrementally we can see the state start to turn purple,” said Kronberg.”

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/demise-of-the-democrats-how-the-party-lost-texas-and-how-it-can-win-it-back/269-487318326

The problem with the Internet is that you can go back and check these things.  How many people watching that will believe the Democrats did something underhanded, when it has been the Republicans all along…  and Ironic it was Reagan who said “Trust, but verify…”.

Tariffs and Prices

Having spent much of my life in parts management and with setting prices for companies, let me give an overview of tariffs and prices:

Basically, I calculated prices by taking the actual price paid for goods, add the hard shipping costs (UPS, Air or Sea and local delivery) and then add Customs and Duties (C&D). This is my “landed” or “dock” cost. The C&D are usually determined by INCO terms.  The INCO terms state if the seller or the buyer is paying what costs of a transaction.  After adding all the above up and taking into account stocking and warehousing costs, I would have a multiplier to come up with my selling price.  The multiplier established the cost of sale, and I had to take into account things like competition, total markup, warehouse and dealer prices and of course my companies procedures.

If a product had an unusual tariff, such as an anti-dumping surcharge, I would have to figure that into my price or look elsewhere for a product without the tariff.

In today’s world we have a very stable supply chain. There may be alternate sources for a product, but they usually come from the same country and it takes months, if not years, to establish a new manufacturing plant.

So what about the new tariffs?  Say we have a product with a cost of 100 dollars ($100.) and a 20% tariff.  So the product would still cost  $100, but I would have a $20 per item cost added in my C&D.  Now this does not mean my cost or my selling price would go up 20%,  but it would have an impact.

What about the supplier paying the tariff?  The only Inco term normally where this happens is DDP.  It would make more sense for the supplier to lower the price of the good.  So maybe the part becomes $90. With a tariff of $18.00. My cost would then be $108, better than $120.  Unless the supplier has a incredible markup in his product, this is not likely to happen.  He still has to pay his expenses and his workers.

What if I eat the tariff?  Well then my company makes less profit and there is less money for raises or research and development.  I am not a tax expert, but a large company might be able to claim these costs against profit.  A small company may not be able to write off these costs.

Now, why has the tariff costs not hit hard yet?  Some companies work on FIFO (First in-first out) and some on LIFO (last in - first out). Some work on weighted averages.  FIFO dampens the effect of increasing costs, weighted averages dampens all fluctuations.  Other things that can cause prices to change are currency fluctuations, shipping costs (remember the fuel surcharges)  amongst others.  Companies using LIFO might have wildly swinging prices, based on the daily cost of materials.  Once you pick and accounting system, you cannot just change at a moments whim.  This would of course affect your profits and of course your taxes so it is discouraged in the Fiscal year.

So if the proposed tariffs stay in effect, you will see prices rise until they stabilize.  This might take 6 months to a year, once new goods make it to market.  The bottom line is that if all that happens is that the companies pay the tariffs, and no business moves to American manufacturers* then the tariff is just an addition tax paid by the consumer.

*For the tariff to lower prices on goods, an American manufacturer would have to be able to produce the product at less than the tariff price.  Right now no manufacture would invest in a new factory, knowing that if the tariff might be removed, they would be right back at the same disadvantage as before.

An Elephant never forgets

The funny thing about the Internet is that it never forgets.

One quick trick is to use Google’s search a specific time period to hone in on the original stories.

Take the accusations of President Obama made by Tulsi Gabbard.

First - she releases a report - done on September 18, 2020.  First - who was the DNI director at the time?  Oh it was John Radcliffe.  What was he doing at the time? - he was releasing unsubstantiated information to affect the election 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/1/21497176/john-ratcliffe-russia-intelligence-hillary-clinton-donald-trump

Even the NY Post at that time was reporting that Obama knew Clinton was trying to pin something on Trump, but even they had to admit:

“Ratcliffe said the intelligence community was unable to confirm the validity of the claim that Clinton cooked up the scandal. He wrote the information was derived from “Russian intelligence analysis ” that could have been an “exaggeration or fabrication.” Sources told Politico that members of both parties on the Senate Intelligence Committee previously discounted the claim as unsupported by fact.”

So a guy who tries to smear the opposing party, approves a report that smears the other party and it is a surprise why???

https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/DIG/DIG-Declassified-HPSCI-Report-Manufactured-Russia-Hoax-July2025.pdf

“Finding #1: The Bulk of ICA Judgments on Russia's Election Operations Were Sound and Employed Proper Analytic Tradecraft

The majority found most ICA judgments on Russia's election activities to be well reasoned, consistent with observed Russian actions, properly documented, and-particularly on the cyber intrusion sections-employed appropriate caveats on sources and identified assumptions. The key ICA judgments that the Majority found

credible are summarized below: 

Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US liberal democratic order.

Russian intelligence services, acting on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, launched conventional

and cyber influence operations-notably by leaking politically sensitive emails obtained from computer intrusions during the 2016 election.

Putin's principal motivations in these influence operations were to advance Moscow's longstanding desire to

undermine faith in US democracy, and to weaken from the start what the Russians considered to be an inevitable Clinton presidencу. 

Putin held back leaking some compromising material to use against the expected Clinton Administration after

they took office.

The operations officers at CIA and NSA who produced the raw intelligence cited in the ICA showed great professionalism. CIA Collection Management Officers (CMOs) in particular, did an excellent job of employing detailed context statements that spelled-out evidentiary problems affecting the reliability of raw intelligence.

The drafters of ICA did not accurately cite the most critical context statements (addressed in detail later in this study) but the original raw reports were nonetheless professionally prepared.”

So we can put these facts to bed forever.

The problem was a debate over whether Putin “aspired” to have Trump win.  Well if he did not want Clinton to win, was he expecting a 3rd party victory?  

Sounds like a pretty weak concept to pin your hopes on.  When Trump said “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,”… well, he did say that.  As I have said in my blog at that time, I did not expect there to be a smoking gun linking Trump to Putin.  But he was playing a dangerous game in appearing to do just that.

Maybe this is interesting reading 10 years gone:

https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-and-putin-two-liars-separated-at-birth/