Category: Economy

State of California Abandons Commercial Real Estate

With the backdrop of impending economic ruin and a recall, Governor Newsom has implemented what I consider a financial suicide pact for California’s government. Newsom and his “brain trust” have decided that working conditions under Covid-19 are such a wonderful thing that all State workers—to the fullest extent possible—will continue to work at home from now until Doom’s Day. Yep, state workers—as a group—will never again have to report to a brick-and-mortar office building. They will continue to work at home from now until they retire.

Apparently, this onetime accounting gimmick is projected to save the state lots of money. Instead of the government paying building rental (or long-term leases) and all utilities, supplies, and maintenance of the offices, now its employees will. As a benefit, California can fudge some numbers about how green the state’s government has become because nobody must drive to work anymore. Oh, and all those businesses that once served state workers breakfast and lunch around said office buildings are going out of business in droves.

In March I will have to spend one three-hour session in my office packing up my personal belongings and scanning any documents in the cubicle. Said documents will then be placed in the shredding bin for destruction. The goal is for me to be completely out of the office at the end of this visit. My coworkers have been commanded to do likewise. Sometime that month we will also be issued laptops to replace the desktops that we have been logging into from home each day since the pandemic panic was initiated. Then we can use VPN (Virtual Private Network) access instead of the VM Ware application that we now use.

Folks, in some cases working from home might work OK but to initiate a blanket policy doing this is nuts. If you think, there’s fragmentation in the Android ecosystem, just wait until the fragmentation of government functions becomes manifest.

  • How does someone monitor your workload when you work from home? Remember that government is not concerned with sales or productivity so what metric do you use? Hamsters are busy all day but do they actually go anywhere on their little wheels?
  • How do you balance workload when you’ve never done the work you are now supervising?
  • How do you promote people or train new employees with no properly written procedures and no face-to-face interaction? Office work is about relationships not just managing email traffic.

Folks, I know that in this post Enron business world, separation of duties is a thing but what California is perpetrating now is a gross perversion of the concept. I think it is a formula for financial ruin with even less accountability.

Oh, case in point is EDD. Did you know that the $31 billion in fraud was due in part to EDD’s employees working from home? There was no way to properly supervise the unemployment case workers because everyone was hiding in their respective homes just clicking approve on whatever came up on their computer screens. I really doubt that EDD employees—especially those hired after the two weeks to flatten the curve—ever had any relationship with their supervisors and I also guarantee that they had inadequate training to boot. In such a scenario, you only get supervision when you ask for help or deny too many claims.

Folks, Governor Newsom, and his fellow travelers are remaking California government right under your noses and the public—as usual—is none the wiser. Guess if it’s not on television then it’s not news. Both ideas and actions have consequences.

The only upside I see on this is that more people can be home during the day to watch their neighborhoods. Hopefully, this will somewhat mitigate the fact that both Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown have emptied much of the state prison population into suburbia. Perhaps tens of thousands of state workers being home all day will make the criminal class think twice about home burglaries.

Meanwhile, because I work from home; my wife is happy that the trash is empty, the laundry is done, and the dishes are clean; and my dog is happy that he gets at least two walks a day and lots of love. Sadly, Rush Limbaugh is not the only guy showing up to work with half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair.

Gavin Newsom Now Bribing Voters

What a time to be alive!  I fire up the KCRA 3 news app, and viola!  The CA state legislature has authorized 5.7 million folks to get stimulus payments.  If you are here illegally, as in you should not be here, then you get $600!  But…in the words of that guy who sells Ronco knives on TV infomercials….”but wait, there’s more!” 

If you make less than $75k after accounting for deductions, YOU TOO GET A CHECK!  Another $600, so if you’re illegal and make less then 75k (since when do people being paid in cash file taxes?) you get a cool $1,200, just for living here.  This is a modern-day bribe.

Don’t believe me, see for yourself.

About $2.3 billion of the money will go to people who claim and receive the California earned income tax credit. In general, that’s people who earn $30,000 a year or less.

Another $470 million will go to people who earn a maximum of $75,000 per year after deductions and use an individual taxpayer identification number to file their income taxes. These are mostly people who don’t have Social Security numbers, including immigrants.

Some people fit both of those categories. In those cases, they will get $1,200, not $600. The Democratic-controlled state Legislature did this because most people who file their taxes this way are immigrants who were not eligible for federal stimulus checks Congress approved last year.

About $993 million will go to people who get help from state programs targeting low-income families, the elderly, the blind and the disabled.

California OKs $600 stimulus payments to 5.7 million people

According to the article, you get your check 3-4 weeks from Franchise Tax Board after you file your taxes.  I would file ASAP, because this state already allowed convicts, felons, folks on death row, and “US Senators” to obtain fraudulent payments via our unemployment board (EDD).  There is no telling when the cash will run out so I would claim earlier as opposed to later.  BTW most folks making around 100k will end up under the 75k threshold after mortgage interest, federal tax, and charitable donations are deducted.  Oh well.

Just remember, the recall should be certified around early April.  The election must be held a couple months or so after that, about when your check will arrive.  No word if it will be stuffed inside your recall ballot.  But I digress.  Pretty sad for a guy to pay you to vote for him, but at least this will be construed as a legal exchange between consenting adults.

The Chief

Editor’s Note: Yesterday Gavin also gave slackers another gift from the Franchise Tax Board when FTB was instructed to halt debt collections from tax filers until July 31, 2021. Unless I missed something, tax filings are still due on April 15th; therefore, the State’s best chance to collect money from resident’s tax returns will be null and void for the second year in a row. This amounts to Newsom commanding that the debts that taxpayers owe to the State be written-off by various state agencies. Typically, state agencies will attempt collection for two years before writing-off the money as a bad debt. In a typical year, if the money is not collected by April 15th then it likely never will be.

When God is Nonessential

Folks, its not that we haven’t addressed the topic of the complete capitulation of virtually all the churches in this country in the face of the Covid nonsense at times in the past; however, it seems to be getting worse. Clearly those claiming the name of Christ fear microbes more that God. The shepherds of the faithful have chosen to scatter their flocks to the four winds to be thrashed by the Evil One while they hide their lamps under the bushel basket cringing in fear and looking to government for salvation.

I took this photo on my way to work this morning.

Oh, on a side note, California taxpayers, thanks for the full paycheck this month when I have spent less than five hours in the office all month. This is the “new normal” for government employment in case you missed that. Yet another story you won’t know if you only watch cable news.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Its one thing when our Governor calls churches nonessential but it’s a whole ‘nother level of stupid when the churches agree with the proposition and call themselves “nonessential” as in the photo above.

The truth is that the offering plate at your local house of worship is really empty these days. Many places of worship—especially in high-cost areas such as here in California—will never recover either the money or the members that they had prior to the Covid collapse. In fact, Jake the Snake said that his parish-which had 1.5 million cash in the bank before Covid-just applied to get a government loan to keep the church’s payroll afloat. This bothered both of us. We talked that such bailouts would come with strings and we wondered aloud if churches would soon lose their tax-exempt status under the Harris/Biden administration.

Folks there’s even worse news for churches than all the above. Last Thursday, I was at the men’s gathering at the local Speak Easy and learned that the men of my congregation are perfectly OK with complying with all the Covid restrictions and see no difference between church on YouTube and worship in person. In fact, they want to hand over more money to Facebook and Twitter to advertise the fact that either way to attend church is equally valid. Oh, when I brought up the historic and biblical model of church being in person and there is no such thing as virtual Sacraments, I was told that watching YouTube services by yourself was not good but if you invoked the “whenever two or three are gathered in my name” that such virtual worship with the family was just fine. (I let it slide that the application of this verse to worship is completely out of context with the passage.) Oh, YouTube is also great because why just watch our service on YouTube when you can watch all them other guys too?

In a congregation that once numbered between 800 and a thousand, three services once a week with a one-hundred-person limit is fine with these guys. In my opinion, its congregational suicide.

Oh, Jake and I also agree that our congregations have buried way more folks than they have either baptized or confirmed since Covid started. The trend line is indisputably in the wrong direction.

Lastly, as I’ve pointed out before, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between closing churches and the rise of socialism in our nation. If your pastor neglects to fill the spiritual vacuum in our society with Christianity, then people will fill it with other stuff to sooth their itching ears. Trust me that there’s much more stuff like that on YouTube than anything with spiritual substance to it. If your church has ceased or restricted in person worship, then your church is part of the problem and not offering solutions.

EDD Numbers Lays Bare Fiscal Irresponsibility

In a state which has move registered voters than citizens of voting age, punishes workers and rewards the slothful, and thinks we are just one more tax on the wealthy from utopia, is it any wonder to read the following story on California’s new unemployment numbers?

California is reporting a surge in coronavirus unemployment claims last week for independent contractors, gig workers and the self-employed, and the tens of thousands of claims are raising renewed concerns about widespread fraud.

The state received more than 77,000 additional claims compared with a week earlier, accounting for more than a quarter of all such claims nationally, according to numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

California sees suspicious surge in unemployment claims

Ok, let’s think about this introduction a little bit. Businesses are closing, people that were temporary hires during the holidays are off the payroll once again, and the big one that nobody is talking about is the federal government is once again paying more money to people that don’t work. Yeah, why would being paid more for not working be a factor in who files for unemployment? Please note the above in the article, “…for independent contractors, gig workers and the self-employed…” and compare it to this from CNBC.

The latest stimulus bill signed into law on Dec. 27, 2020, extends federal programs by 11 weeks to help freelancers, self-employed, gig workers and the long-term unemployed, and it reinstates the weekly federal enhancement that expired in July 2020, this time at a reduced rate of $300 per week.

These states are already paying out the new $300 unemployment boost

Clearly the linkage between government policy and behavior can been seen in the above.

Oh, but we’re just getting warmed up with this article.

The KCRA article continues:

The state Employment Development Department has been overwhelmed with unemployment claims since March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order that shuttered many businesses. The state has processed more than 19 million claims and paid out more than $113 billion in benefits.

Just to put these numbers in perspective, the state budget for the current fiscal year was $202 Billion.

In less than 10 months, California has spent over half this amount on just one social welfare program.

Also note that there were 19 million claims in a state with a population of 36 to 40 million folks. This includes both children and the elderly. On a statistical basis, most eligible workers in the state are on government assistance and not working. This is a disturbing statistic.

The state thinks that many of these claims are fraudulent, but they seem perplexed at how to prove it.

About 4 million claims and $43 billion in payments fall under the program for independent contractors. The program has helped a lot of people who are self-employed weather economic shutdowns from the virus. But its broad eligibility requirements have made it a target of criminals seeking easy paydays.

Thursday’s increase was in new claims, not those from people extending or renewing them under a Congressional extension.

That alarmed Michael Bernick, a former Employment Development Department director and attorney with the Duane Morris firm.

Most independent contractors in California should already have filed new claims in the previous nine months, he said.

“The (new) claims numbers make no sense, other than indicating the re-emergence of fraudulent claims,” Bernick said.

Overall, the state has acknowledged paying at least $400 million in phony claims, including thousands in the names of prison inmates, including some on death row. However, fraudulent claims have fallen significantly since last fall, when the state installed new safeguards, including contracting with the companies ID.me and Pondera Solutions to better verify claimants’ identities.California was flooded with claims in the early days of the pandemic after Newsom imposed stay-at-home orders in mid-March that closed most businesses. The department managed to resolve a backlog that peaked last year at 1.6 million claims. But the pile has grown again and now stands at more than 800,000 people.

Blake Hall, founder and CEO of ID.me, told the Los Angeles Times last week that at least 10% of claims submitted to the state before controls were installed in October may have been fraudulent — which could result in nearly $10 billion in fraudulent payments.

Folks, the statistics in this story are mind-blowing. Just the mere facts presented in this article are an indictment of the state’s fiscal mismanagement.

Just to recap

  • 19 million unemployment claims as a result of Covid.
  • Costing $113 billion.
  • Ten percent of claims are fraudulent (and perhaps more)
  • One fourth of all new claims in the US are from California.
  • EDD has 80,000 claim backlog.
  • No way to really know what is legitimate or fraudulent.
  • No end in sight or effort to put people back to work.

The Fake Economy Continues

So, it is my fellow readers and followers of this blog.  All the pundits cheered today as Former Central Bank Chair Janet Yellen demanded Congress act quickly and pass a 1.9 trillion-dollar spending package.  Yep, act quickly, because god only knows what would happen if the media found out what was in it right?  Fat chance.  This package will extend a fake economy started under Obama/Biden, and mostly continued under Trump.

Joe Biden, America’s most popular President at a campaign stop on his way to victory.

Here are examples of how the economy has been fake and how it will continue to be fake under Biden.

0% interest rates continue, this was a fixture since almost W. Bush’s presidency. As a result, banks can borrow from the Fed Reserve for about 0% and lend to you for around 3% if you’re buying a house, or many multiples more if you are buying a car.  This does not stimulate an economy; it just let’s free money flow from one lender to the next.  This works only if the buyer is able to “perform” (make payments) on the loan.  Which leads to…..

0% interest also means banks will continue not paying you squat to have an account with them, in essence making your savings worthless.  When you add in inflation adjustments annually, if your savings/money doesn’t earn at least that much your buying power has been decreased.  Unless you are a business…..

0% Means corporations are able to borrow “cheap money” and buy out competitors.  See what AT&T has done over the past few years, first buying DirecTV and recently buying Time-Warner.  While consolidation is not always a bad thing, it stifles competition and leads to mass layoffs, again see DirecTV and Time-Warner among others.  In addition, most corporations have started venture capital arms, whose sole goal is to “invest in startups” with the hope of buying them later.  Kind of like that show Shark Tank on TV.  Again, this is all well and good until the interest rates or the debt load eventually eat away your income.  Many corporations will find the “next chapter” is Chapter 7 or 11, not to be confused with the iconic Slurpee chain.

$15 minimum wage, contrary to what economists on TV say, will create complete destruction among retail and food service work.  (Like after ten months of Covid-19 they need any more help.) Government mandating of wages is the worst possible thing to do.  Show me a worker who requires $15 an hour to work the grill, I will show you a robotic arm who can do the job far cheaper.  Automation will be the word of the next decade, eliminating good paying jobs to replace with robot. Its coming quick folks.  No minimum wage job was ever meant to be a career, for some (felons, rap sheets, drop-outs) it’s a hard way to earn a living, but didn’t their choices land them there?  How come we don’t talk-up trade schools?  More on that next….

We have ignored and made fun of the trade schools for far too long.  They carry a negative stigma. Why work in construction, work on cars, or be a plumber?  Especially when you can get a degree in arts or humanities.  As a result, some of these have transformed into dangerous for profit schools who now charge prohibitive sums of money, but it’s okay because……

Student loan relief is a part of this bill.  Biden has put off interest and payments until September of this year. Like savings, why be responsible? Don’t pay!  More disturbingly, he wants to do 10K student loan relief with the stroke of his pen.  AOC, Bernie, Schumer, and co aren’t happy and want 50k.  That’s an ungodly sum and should fly in the face of anyone who has paid their loans in full.  This also creates a dangerous precedent moving forward.  But…..

$1,400 payments to all folks making under a certain income threshold is part of this mana from heaven as well.  Who cares about erasing money or debt when we can just print more of it!  Fear not, the system we will use to verify who hits the government mandated lottery is last year’s (2019) tax returns.  Yep, even if Covid didn’t affect you at all you get a check!  Made more than that and lost your job?  Sorry Charlie, the Magic 8 Ball says, “No.”  You may ask why we have no system that keeps track of those who lost their jobs due to Covid?  Answer is we do, it’s at the state level and in CA we call it Employment Development Department (EDD).  Why don’t we use their system….well Google EDD scandal CA.  Never mind I’ll save you the time.  Our EDD sent roughly 2 billion in fraudulent checks to folks incarcerated, or to the dead, unborn or infirm.  Still don’t believe me?  Checks went to Scott Peterson (on death row) and Senator Diane Feinstein.  Yup go look it up.  Sorry, but the person who ran EDD has been promoted and is a part of Biden’s team, so look for more undeserving folks to land checks.  I’ll take Hunter Biden in the office pool.

Rest assured I doubt this will be the only check sent out. Sadly, my conservative friends see this as stimulus, not Universal Basic Income.  (Republicans think the rules are for checkers not chess.) Like usual, the Democrats lure the GOP in and while we think we’re doing the Lord’s work, they immediately run the end around, fooling us and taking all the credit.  Think Charlie Brown kicking the football. Try to stop these payments once they start.

Eviction and foreclosure moratoriums are currently through March.  This is just kicking the can slightly. We will end up kicking it further, I predict September.  Look for a utility payment moratorium as well.  These folks are all hopelessly behind, but Biden knows if he cranks up the eviction/foreclosure machine the economy wrecks big time, all on his watch.  Housing is in a major bubble and the only ones who can’t see it are the ones who benefit from it.  I look to scoop up a McMansion in future for about half of what folks are paying now.  In my hometown a McMansion about a decade ago was 500k, now modest homes are selling for around 700, with upward movement likely.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t all doom and gloom. The 90-Dday types will continue to talk about record high stock prices, and in some ways they are correct.  They pointed to job reports of “growing payrolls” however a cursory look around town shows me nothing but government and retail jobs.  The latter will be decimated by Covid, mark my words.  They will turn on a cable channel and be greeted with folks saying all-time highs, this is because as I mentioned earlier your savings account pays you nothing, so you must invest it.  The smart folks got in a long time ago and are more than happy to watch you scoop up more expensive shares.  They smile about stimulus knowing you won’t be paying debts, just buying more stuff you don’t need. Only China benefits but that’s ok because Democrats get a cut off all the 5G iPhones you’ll be buying. This economy is fake, you don’t have to believe me, but you cannot print money, send out free money, and have a prosperous society.  Someday the lender will want the money to be paid back, and there won’t be another check.

The Chief

Those who won’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Johnny Does Here is what Cable does to your Brain

The pandemic started 3/19 in my estimation, going by the original lockdown ordered by the governor.  I will be detailing the thoughts and “changing beliefs” of the 90-Day Guy of whom I work with.  This story is 100% real and will show how cable and too much TV can manipulate and poison your brain.  Take it all in, by the way, in no way am I saying cancel your cable, I’m just pointing out how some folks lose all ability by which to think for themselves. 

Here is the irrationality.

90-Day Guy after watching over nine months of wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage
  • 3/19/20 I am staying at home, I am in a high risk category
  • 3/30/20 Our government has lied to us, many millions will die of this virus, it’s here and taking over.
  • 4/15/20 he made an appointment with his estate/trust lawyer to update his affairs because “he didn’t want to die in a long line waiting to get into an emergency room. (that’s a wild statement, at the time there were no lines or talk of any lines at any ER in California)
  • 5/01/20 90-Day Guy was contemplating flying to Texas, when asked if he felt safe on an airplane, he responded Covid can’t be spread on a plane, they have good ventilation. (The part about ventilation has been shared by no one ever.)
  • 5/20/20 The lockdowns are working but we must all do our share, again he refuses to come to an office due to concerns about Covid 19.
  • 5/31/20 He was called about a question regarding a client where he admitted he was at an Indian casino. Yup, do as I say, not as I do. By the way this was the first day the casinos were allowed to open.
  • June: CA was allowed to do a phased re-opening, where he railed against bars, restaurants and gyms being allowed to open, they are dirty, have dirty people and its Covid central. (Again, most of those statements are unfounded, the others are slightly true at best.)
  • July: Again, refusal to come into the office, yet he golfs on the regular and visits the casinos but has included the Tahoe and Reno areas. Keep in mind Nevada ordered no visitors from out of town. When questioned about his habits, his retort was “a Dr. on Hannity last night said you can’t get it at a golf course or an Indian Casino. (seriously a Dr. on a cable show? Dr. Oz wasn’t available?)
  • August: We have bent the curve, it’s time to re-open. He wasn’t going to come into the office, but it needed to happen. Keep in mind, this correlates to Trump falling behind in the polls to a worrisome point to Joe Biden.
  • September: The virus is a hoax, no one is dying, re-open. But not bars, or gyms. Again, Trump is very behind in polling.
  • October: This is very disturbing, not only is he refusing to come in, he changes the office voicemail to essentially a message saying “he doesn’t want to get Covid, and is working remote and he hopes this all passes soon.” What for? He still rarely came in. As an aside; he calls me one night asking questions about voter history of US citizens, as far as if someone can find out who he voted for. When I told him I had no idea, he said he was going to vote for Biden, so the BLM folks don’t burn his house down. He lives in rural Sacramento County, and he is worried about this? Flat out disturbing.
  • November: The trips to golf and casinos continue, all the while he is telling folks he is holding out for a vaccine, and we are so close to stopping this thing. He tells me he is clinically depressed due to Biden winning (look at support for Biden earlier) and the virus continuing to spread. When I got him calmed down on the phone, he continued to quote Dr. Fauci (the one man who has been constantly wrong) and spewing gibberish about he is concerned for his family’s safety. I tell him I would put the remote down and socially distance from the TV for a while, he says he doesn’t watch TV.
  • December: He comes in, grinning ear to ear saying the vaccine is so close and he wants to get it as fast as possible. Hannity had a couple doctors on his show and Tucker Carlson had a few one too, they all say it’s safe. When I asked if he read any peer reviewed research, he said he hadn’t. No real shock. When he was told by his two colleagues neither of us were getting the shot, he accused us of being stupid. (typical of the tolerant left mind you). When I told him several doctors in my family including my own personal doctor advised against the shot due to a variety of things, he shot back saying its safe. Saying a doctor on Tucker said it was.
  • December cont: suddenly a sea change. He said he never claimed he was going to get the shot, now claiming a doctor on Hannity said it is not safe, and he has many questions about it. He claims VP elect Kamal Harris refused to get the shot. (literally he said this a day after it was given to her.) Then he started rambling about how Biden won’t be that bad of a president and we will be able to overcome all this.
  • 1/04/21 I do not know if I want to take the vaccine, I have been seeing some bad things about it. Literally 2 minutes later he was caught in the break room on the phone with his medical provider trying to cut in line to get the shot himself. This was moments after I mentioned Dr. Fauci bringing up having a “vaccine passport” similar to Israel where if you haven’t been vaccinated you can’t go to entertainment, large gatherings etc. While my statement is slightly far-fetched, it shows how much he believes his own BS.
  • 1/11/21 I am going to stay at home for the next two weeks we must get ICU beds above the threshold, when asked what the threshold is he couldn’t answer saying only in LA they are rationing care. (the latter statement has yet to be proven true.)

Again, this is not to point out how Fox or any anchor or guest on Fox may have misspoke, it’s about watching a human mind be turned into mush.  Just look at how all over the place the guy has been.  I am no doctor but if this is normal he has some sort of derangement syndrome.  Go back and read this all again, it’s pathetic and sickening.  Watch how he sifts, resifts, and basically changes his opinion like most should change their drawers…daily.

Have fun watching cable and paying $175 a month to watch just 1 channel at a time.  He may not cop to watching Fox or any other channel, but man does he seem to parrot opinions like crazy.  Sadly, there is no hope for this man. Like many, this type of person spends their day watching copious amounts of TV, to be followed by searching all over the internet for an answer they like, about a problem they have.  As witnessed above, his views changed and shifted all over.  The part about anxiety attacks is disturbing, but to be expected, when you seek out a “trusted medium” this occurs when you don’t see what they tell you is happening.

In short, please reconsider how much TV you watch, it’s like poison or drugs.  The more you watch the more you are hooked.  Sit back from a far and check it out, it’s on a continuous loop, restarting every hour.  You will not get answers to your questions, just affirmation of your perceived answers.  Also dive into who the guests actually are, what is there past?  I can guarantee the guy coming up after the break is not a real practicing doctor, just a research doctor.  When you chain yourself to a chair or a couch for an extended period of time, the above will occur to you.  Just to give you an idea, the 90-Day Guy watches more TV in a day then I watch in a month.  This explains his constant changing of beliefs.  Look at just how petty he is, how he changes beliefs, jumps around, then in essence tailors his message to anyone in the room he is in.  It’s pathetic and lonely.  Lest you think I’m off kilter, re-read his points about elections and Biden.  Yikes.

Johnnie Does

You are now free to move about the COUNTY

Nope, Southwest Airlines isn’t flying a new daily non-stop between Sac International and Sac Executive airport.  Out of literally nowhere, our Dictator in Chief, Gavin Newsom, has decided Greater Sacramento can exit the stay-at-home order.  This means that as early as tomorrow evening outdoor and certain indoor activities can resume; likely with limited capacity.

First of all, call me skeptical.  A close friend of mine works for the Governor, as in, in his office, and he told me this was not even being discussed as of yesterday (1/11).  The latest update of available ICU beds (the new criteria, after general hospitalizations, death, sickness, and other scare tactics failed to work) was 6.9% as of Friday.  Now they are saying it’s over 19%??? What happened? A purge?  Someone let Dr. Kevorkian loose with his death machine?  Did physician assisted suicide come back to haunt us?  Did California’s dead voters get purged from the hospital rolls?

Per Dept of Health Services, as of Jan 11, the number of positive ICU patients was the highest on record.

You may not remember, but we were expected to come out of the lockdown many weeks if not months from now (its peak flu season) but miraculously the numbers went from 6.5% IUC beds to 19.4% in the space of about 36 hours. (This is supposed to be a rolling 4 week average.)

Per Dept of Health Services, as of Jan 11, Sacramento County ICU beds available thru Jan 11 was the same as Christmas day–83.

Does any of this make sense to anyone?  I guess it’s kind of like how many licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, the world may never know.

Second; what about Sac County taking Covid patients from other neighboring counties?  False.  A few nurses I went to college with who work in the area told me that was a lie.  They never once took/saw a patient from San Joaquin, Yuba-Sutter or Solano.  False!  I was actually told that we always had room at the Inn, problem was, it didn’t fit the narrative.  We had to scare folks, and what better way than saying there are no beds left to scare the bejesus out of people.  Literally a week ago Adventist and Ryde Hospital in Yuba-Sutter was at max capacity and were going to be bussing patients to Sac County…never happened.

Per Dept of Health Services, as of Jan 11, number of Covid positive patients in Sacramento County is at an all time high.

Now the entire region can go back to purple tier restrictions; so, in essence outdoor: church, restaurants, bars, movies, wine tasting, gyms, cardrooms and indoor: haircuts, nail salons, and retail. 

So, what happened?  Well, a couple things, first off Trump is out of office, and who knows, by the publication of this blog post, he may be forcible removed.  Newsom is facing a recall that just broached the 1 million signature mark and counting.  In addition, a couple big donors just threw in some major financial support.  However, I feel the big game changer was tax revenue is way down.   Nothing else explains the madness behind this constant opening and closing.  The dirty little secret is most counties rely on sales tax to float their budgets and payrolls, the property tax is nice, but it only comes twice a year, and look for that to be way down as I fear many have stopped paying mortgages, and with tech companies moving out of state this could get ugly.

This is what happens when a cruel dictator takes over, state run media silences all dissent, the cable folks paint a grim picture, and the 90-day folks get scared.  In the meantime, wear your mask it protects me from you.  Enjoy this while you can, just wait for the next “criteria” to be developed.  I still predict Armageddon like you’ve never seen at some point soon.

The Chief

PS The “other” Cuomo (The NY Governor guv) also backtracked publicly on shutdowns today, adding further credence to our belief that this was all about booting the Orange Man from Office.  SAD!

BTW I know his name is Andrew Cuomo, but I get him and his meathead idiot brother on CNN mixed up all the time.  Two peas same pod, neither could find their way out of a paper bag if they were given directions anyway.

Editor’s Note: Another reason for Gavin’s sudden change of heart is to help Hidin’ Joe Biden start with better economic circumstances than Trump ended with. For your consideration let me remind you that the United States Department of Labor Statistics “reference period is the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month” thus any payroll after today (Jan 12th) is owned by Joe Biden. Today is the last reporting day of the Trump Administration. “The employment and wage data provided on the Quarterly Contribution Report and Multiple Worksite Report impact directly or indirectly a large number of important economic statistics, including the Gross Domestic Product and other measures of the labor market and overall economy. The accuracy of these and other economic indicators relies on the accuracy of the pay figures reported by employers.”

Reducing My Digital Footprint

I have grown tired of my friends being attacked by Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the rest. I’m tired of fearing for my employment because I disagree with the Liberal agenda. No, I don’t have a solution— although I am looking for alternatives to “Big Tech” and I hope to blog on that soon.

Folks, the boys in Silicon Valley only understand one thing and that’s money. Less users or subscribers is less money they can charge advertisers. To that end, I encourage you to do what you can to deprive them of revenue. Dump products and services that you don’t really need. To the extent that you can, demonetize FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). So far Netflix is sitting this latest purge out, as is Microsoft, but given a chance to get involved, they probably would.

FAANG is Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google

Is there a viable operating system for a computer that isn’t made by Apple or Microsoft? Nope, not one that does what I need for work or pleasure. Cell phones are dominated by Apple and Google (Android). There are Linux alternatives for PCs and even Smartphones but I don’t know if there are enough apps to keep casual users happy in this alternative ecosystem.

I have taken some actions and am considering more.

I have cancelled my Twitter account. I only got Twitter at the insistence of Sebastian Gorka. I got free tickets to hear him speak in Roseville a few years ago. He had worked for President Trump and had high praise for Trump. He encouraged folks to actually see what Trump was saying and not wait for the media’s take on what was said—because it was often out of context with what actually happened. I took Gorka’s advice, and you know what, Gorka was right. Rarely did Trump ever fire the first shot at anyone but he often responded to attacks from other platforms by posting his reaction on Twitter. (If Republicans had the spine to defend the President then the whole Twitter thing would never had been necessary.) As a platform, I was disappointed with Twitter because there was often a 12-to-24-hour delay between a Trump post and Twitter sending me a notification–which often never happened at all. Banning Trump for life left me with literally zero reason to keep my account open so I cancelled it a few days ago.

While Microsoft has thus far not interjected itself into the jihad on Conservatives, I decided to dump my Linked-In account. I never used it anyway. I only had it because when Sue Blake was rising to power as chair of the Sacramento Republican Central Committee, she encouraged us to open Facebook and Linked-In accounts.

On my to-do list is dumping my Facebook account. If Zuckerberg lifts the Trump ban in the next few days, I might keep it, otherwise I’m gone from their platform too.

If you leave social media platforms, please be aware that there are usually ways to download your content before killing your account.

I plan to explore this option before dumping Facebook so I can keep some photos and other things. I will let you know what the file looks like after I’ve done that. Here is where to find it in Facebook’s settings.

Where to find download option in Facebook
Settings>Your Facebook Information>Download Your Information

Oh, I plan to write a blog dedicated to a scathing post on Facebook by an Admin for one of the groups that I have belonged to for many years. Folks, the post is long but its really eye opening in a bad way.

Meanwhile, if you have any comments or suggestions related to this topic, please pass them on to me.

Sacramento County Supervisors Ignore Stalinist Bureaucrat

Yep, even with a Democrat majority running the county, they managed to do the right thing at the Supervisor’s December meeting. Most people that I talked to didn’t even know the county was considering fines up to$10,000 on businesses that didn’t follow the federal/state/county rules on Covid—whatever they might have been on that particular day.

But folks, that’s not the half of it, it contained full-blown Soviet Union secret police, guilty by anonymous accusation, type language. Ironically, similar rules in parts of New York are also being considering. Lastly, please remember that this ordinance was the departing gift that Sacramento County’s top health official, Peter Beilenson, was trying to leave to local citizens as his lasting legacy.

The following are quotes from Sue Frost, one of the five county supervisors.

…I was baffled by the notion that we should be threatening them with fines of up to $10,000. Still, that notion took form in a proposal brought forward by our Public Health Department as an urgency ordinance.

Relief, Not Fines for Small Businesses

The ordinance included the property owner as the potentially responsible party.

Further, it gave the Public Health Department the authority to designate anyone they saw fit as an enforcement officer. That means it would not necessarily be the Sheriff, Code Enforcement, or even a health inspector going into businesses to investigate violations. Under this ordinance, any county employee could be given the authority to enter a business and cite them for a perceived violation..  I say perceived violation because not only are enforcement officers potentially untrained county employees, but they would not be required to even witness a violation under the ordinance. If adopted, the enforcement officer could issue citations based on “investigations” or simply being told by other county staff a violation occurred.

The ordinance did include an appeal process, but only when the fines were for more than $1000. With the fines being as much as $500 for every day a perceived violation occurs, I am sure many would be granted the opportunity for an appeal. However, the appeal process would require a $750 deposit…

Yep, be accused and get fined. Great thinking there Doc Beilenson. Who needs evidence? Oh, and for the privilege to prove your innocence you have to pay $750 in advance. Plus, you are subject to additional “administrative fees” while fighting for your economic life.

To illustrate administrative fees, here’s a brief story. Last week, at the Speak Easy here in Elk Grove, a local business that provides opportunities for the consumption of adult beverages both indoors and out, I was with a guy that told me his son blew-off a $25 bill from DMV. The dumb kid ignored the warning letters and his $25 bill escalated to one thousand dollars. That folks is what administrative fees can mean to normal people in the real world. Take a look at you next speeding ticket and you’ll see the amount of the traffic fine is only about half of the amount of your payment to the county.

Good thing for business owners that Trump won four more years, or you’d really be screwed. Oh, wait, you are screwed.

Where Have the Conservatives Gone?

By The Chief

No not like the Paul Shanklin parody played when John McCain was trying to say he was a Reagan conservative when running against Barack Obama in 2008.  I’m talking about 2021 in the People’s Republic of California. 

First some background. The state GOP loves to talk tough with rhetoric such as “the other side are a bunch of weenies”, “government shouldn’t pick winners and losers”, and “Obama Care is nothing but death panels”.  These phrases we all uttered during the Obama’s years in the White House.  Fast forward to 2020.  Governor Newsom orders massive shutdowns; included are churches, indoor dining, theatres, barber shops, and others.  Nary a word from the same folks who told me government shouldn’t pick winners and losers.  Rest assured Newsom kept the liquor stores, weed dispensaries, and big box stores open, under a weird guise of being essential. 

But wait there is more; now that we have a vaccine, a real-life death panel has been formed of current and former medial types (think Fauci, and his ilk) who are deciding who gets the shots and in what order.  A real-life death panel, I say again, and again nary a word from the same folks who screamed about Obama killing grandma.  Glad to see most all political types were given a shot prior to, I don’t know, the folks working in ICU/ER or old folks’ homes!  Teachers will be in the next rotation; however, they have mostly been distance learning.  Students will be following shortly afterward, again the distance learning thing.  No comment on when folks who are old/infirm or those who have COPD/Asthma or other pre-existing conditions that make them high risk will get the shot. 

Just to go a step further, in LA county, ambulances have been advised not to bring patients to the ER if they think they have zero chance at survival.  Again, nothing from the same so-called conservatives who warned about death panels and rationing of care.  I thought that was the major conservative talking point during the Obama years.

The reason for this short form rant is this: those folks never actually believed their own talking points. Remember “Repeal and Replace” and then finding out Republicans never had a plan to replace anything—it was just campaign talking points to stir-up voters. In truth Rahm Emanuel said it best, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”  These same folks, when it was politically expedient, railed against it, now when they find themselves in a predicament, they are strangely silent.  The truth is most of those same folks are scared of this virus and work for government, are retired, or other essential jobs meaning they can live as usual.  However, they wish to see others suffer under the guise of a “deadly pandemic.”  See the 90-Day Guy, its ok to go to an Indian Casino, but the bars better remain closed or else.  Same applies to the vaccine distribution, make sure I am at the front of the line and I will keep quiet, who cares about other people, it’s all about me.

Sadly, the CA GOP wonders why it continues to drift into irrelevance.  The truth is, they lack any sort of leadership and would rather be a voice of loyal opposition.  Conservativism has been dead for a decade plus now, George W. Bush may have declared the era of big government to be over, but in reality, he helped hasten the move toward socialism.  Nice going so called conservatives, funny how when shutting down businesses to slow the spread and letting a death panel play God is only a bad thing when the outcome may not benefit you.

Chief