Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Over? I Don't Think So.

I've had a little time this morning to do some reading and I found some interesting things. Most of them contradict the governments official mantra of it's getting better, it's getting better.
I have read and heard on the TV that a group has determined that the recession ended in 2009. WTF? Ended? What are they smoking? From my perspective the recession continues. The dollar continues to lose its value, worth and desirability. Countries around the world are dumping their dollar holdings and switching to gold or Euros (for some stupid reason) and some want to to create a "global currency". Here are some links to various articles that paint a very different picture as to the health of the US and it's failing economy.
They've been caught doing this before, The Fed is thinking of buying more bonds. This is interesting as the bonds they are buying are their own! They do it to manipulate the interest rate.
Most folks realize that when the dollar drops, gold prices increase. If you've been paying attention to the gold market for the last year, gold has steadily risen in price. On September 21 gold was pushing the 1300 dollars an ounce range. Add up the two previous sums and you get this.
There are various claims as to the total of the governments debt. But it generally falls in the multiple TRILLION dollar range. Yes, that's right, TRILLIONS. Now we find that the US is hiding debt. Lots of it. I'm talking a final number of somewhere between 60 and 200 TRILLION!
That brings us to this winderful little nugget. Get out your fingers and count up how many friends, family and aquaintences are out of work or underemployed. I generally come up with 50 percent. I know its better or worse depending on you location but here in Missouri the state percentage is running 9-11 percent but I still get a 40-50 percent range among my immediate circle.

Other News
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The rats are leaving the sinking ship of the Obama White House! Seriously, take a look around the internet and see how may of The Chosen Ones staff have retired or quit or are going to quit. Inspires confidence don't it?

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

What I've been doing or Why I haven't been posting

Wow! have I been busy! The owner of the little apartment building that I am going to manage lives in Kalifornia. He has been flying out, on what seems like, an every other week schedule. He spends 3-5 days here and wings it back to Kali. It's been very interesting talking to this man. He was born and bred in San Fran Cisco. He is amazed that, here in Missouri, marijuana is ....ILLEGAL. He says they have pot stores and pot shows in Frisco. I told him if someone had a pot show in Mo. the biggest attendees would be local and county cops, the State Patrol, DEA, ATF and some other alphabet soup agencies. He is also shocked that in this part of the state we don't have smog inspections for our cars. This was a half hour discussion. He could not believe we don't do tail pipe inspections.
The main reason the owner comes out is so we can rehab his building. Nearly 4 years ago he put 50 grand in this apartment building. You cannot tell it today. The low class "renters" his last "manager" let stay there just destroyed the place. That was in addition to not paying rent. So the majority of his 50 large is gone as well as over 20 grand in unpaid rents. He is self employed in Kali and his business is really down due to a major drop in business travel to his town. Basically he is busted. So he puts some stuff on a credit card, we work on the building, he goes home and tries to pay off the card, then he comes back again. Repeat as needed. It's slow going but we are making progress.
When I'm not working on the old apartment I'm working on my other house or mowing or working on a gun or cleaning house or working on the Harley or helping someone or any other thing that comes up. For instance, this weekend a friend is having a family reunion at her house. I'm doing the cooking for this event. She wants me to smoke a few pork butts and make pulled pork. She hasn't decided on the side dishes yet. Then I'm working on the apartment again for another week, more mowing on Wednesday and then more mowing on Monday. I have a total of 4 places to mow, 2 of mine, one neighbor and the apartment. Time and lack of funds has kept me from doing any shooting or working on our preps. The other house is pretty much eating up most of our income. One day soon though we will be living there and can sell this one. At that point we will be debt free. Then the fun begins.