As I write from the news desk at reallyright.com this weekend, I came across an article that featured a football player. Of course, I figured he is dumb because well…like Democrats, they say athletes are dumb. “I was tuld so whil in skool.”
Back in the day, I attended Jesuit High School. I know the athlete stereotype first-hand. As a freshman and sophomore (which means “wise fool” in Latin by the way), I was viewed as a great scholar. I played no sports, I was focused on school. As a junior and senior, I played football, (NOT A BIG DEAL) and suddenly I was viewed as a dumb jock. BRAG ALERT, BRAG ALERT!!!!! We went undefeated my junior year, only team to ever do that by the way (AGAIN NOT A BIG DEAL).
Humble brag over for now, let’s share the story. A player on my favorite football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, also known as the team that completely embarrassed the Oakland/Los Angles/Las Vegas/wherever Raiders, made news this week. Shaq Barrett signed with Tampa in last offseason for 4 million dollars. He had a great year and most folks figured he would go to a true professional team, as Tampa is the worst team in football history. My spies tell me he will be back in Tampa after leading the league in quarterback sacks last year, but in case you were wondering, he won’t be going to Los Angeles.
“If [other teams] offer me more than Tampa, I’m going to look at the places, if they offer me more than Tampa, I’m going to look at what their taxes is compared to Tampa’s.Because I ain’t going to live in L.A. and get taxed crazy,” Shaq said.
“I’m not going to take drastically less but I am open to doing what I think is best for my career, and I think that would be staying in Tampa.”
But he’s a dumb jock right????? Just like me in High School as most on the left would say we “don’t cum to play skool.” They could not be more wrong about most of us. We are normal people some just with gifts from God, me being tall and fast. However, it’s funny. My first two years at Jesuit, I barely achieved, and I could care less about school. I had a 2.3 GPA; however, I was viewed as a scholar. I was loved by my teachers, then I became a “dumb jock” and it’s funny my GPA at graduation from Jesuit, regarded as a top institution of higher learning, was 3.75. Funny because when I enrolled I took elementary algebra, and other classes I could care less about, my junior year I took calculus, and took care of business. My point being we aren’t dumb jocks, we prefer you guys thinking we are.
Gavin you have it smoking in California…keep it up. Your state stinks so bad even the Raiders are leaving. It’s ironic actually, your voters are much like fans of the 49ers, Raiders, Rams, and Chargers, they haven’t been relevant in decades.
Folks, I’m including several different articles today as well as personal observations of the ongoing collapse of the once golden state. I also want to recommend one article in particular that is worth sharing to everyone. I will give you some highlights just in case it ends up behind a pay firewall someday.
Retail Apocalypse
First, the retail apocalypse continues. January 1, 2020 saw an economic bloodbath. Especially hit hard are restaurants. Reasons are increasing regulations like AB-5 and minimum wages/benefits, rent increases, and in at least one case, I suspect failure to keep up on payroll taxes. Here’s a partial list:
Not only are jobs leaving California but one online job website based in San Francisco, is banning any employment listing after March first anywhere in the State of California.
Fast-growing Wonolo, which helps connect thousands of businesses with tens of thousands of contract workers, plans to halt its gig worker job postings for California on March 31.
It is all because of the new California state legislation known as AB-5, which went into effect Jan. 1 and requires companies to reclassify a wide category of California contract workers as employees.
“Given the limitations of AB-5, we anticipate that we may not be able to allow businesses to post jobs in California as of March 31, 2020. This means you will see significantly fewer jobs on Wonolo in California. We have not made this decision lightly but have done so in order to protect businesses from any unnecessary risks associated with the new legislation,” Wonolo co-founder and CEO Yong Kim stated in an email sent Dec. 17 to its gig workers and viewed by the San Francisco Business Times.
I find it ironic that a decade ago, the best political consultants on the conservative/Republican side based in California quit working California campaigns, instead spending their time in out of state elections. Now for much the same reasons, California businesses are concentrating on out of state markets to stay alive while ignoring their own backyard. I’m sure this is just coincidence.
High-Tech Feudalism
OK, as promised here’s portions of the article that I implore you to read in its entirety. It’s long but worth it.
In truth, the Golden State is becoming a semi-feudal kingdom, with the nation’s widest gap between middle and upper incomes—72 percent, compared with the U.S. average of 57 percent—and its highest poverty rate. Roughly half of America’s homeless live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, which now has the highest property crime rate among major cities. California hasn’t yet become a full-scale dystopia, of course, but it’s heading in a troubling direction.
In the last two decades, the state has adopted policies that undermine the basis for middle-class growth. State energy policies, for example, have made California’s gas and electricity prices among the steepest in the country. Since 2011, electricity prices have risen five times faster than the national average. Meantime, strict land-use controls have raised housing costs to the nation’s highest, while taxes—once average, considering California’s urban scale—now exceed those of virtually every state. At the same time, California’s economy has shed industrial diversity in favor of dependence on one industry: Big Tech. Just a decade before, the state’s largest firms included those in the aerospace, finance, energy, and service industries. Today’s 11 largest companies hail from the tech sector, while energy firms—excluding Chevron, which has moved much of its operations to Houston—have disappeared. Not a single top aerospace firm—the iconic industry of twentieth-century California—retains its headquarters here.
Though lionized in the press, this tech-oriented economy hasn’t resulted in that many middle- and high-paying job opportunities for Californians, particularly outside the Bay Area. Since 2008, notes Chapman University’s Marshall Toplansky, the state has created five times the number of low-paying, as opposed to high-wage, jobs.A remarkable 86 percent of new jobs paid below the median income, while almost half paid under $40,000. Moreover, California, including Silicon Valley, created fewer high-paying positions than the national average, and far less than prime competitors like Salt Lake City, Seattle, or Austin. Los Angeles County features the lowest pay of any of the nation’s 50 largest counties.
Perhaps the biggest demographic disaster is generational. For decades, California incubated youth culture, creating trends like beatniks, hippies, surfers, and Latino and Asian art, music, and cuisine. The state is a fountainhead of youthful wokeness and rebellion, but that may prove short-lived as millennials leave. From 2014 to 2018, notes demographer Wendell Cox, net domestic out-migration grew from 46,000 to 156,000. The exiles are increasingly in their family-formation years. In the 2010s, California suffered higher net declines in virtually every age category under 54, with the biggest rate of loss coming among the 35-to-44 cohort.
As families with children leave, and international migration slows to one-third of Texas’s level, the remaining population is rapidly aging. Since 2010, California’s fertility rate has dropped 60 percent, more than the national average; the state is now aging 50 percent more rapidly than the rest of the country. A growing number of tech firms and millennials have headed to the Intermountain West. Low rates of homeownership among younger people play a big role in this trend, with California millennials forced to rent, with little chance of buying their own home, while many of the state’s biggest metros lead the nation in long-term owners. California is increasingly a greying refuge for those who bought property when housing was affordable.
The state, nevertheless, continues its pursuit of policies that would eliminate all fossil fuels and nuclear power—outpacing national or even Paris Accord levels and guaranteeing ever-rising energy prices. Mandating everything from electric cars to electric homes will only drive more working-class Californians into “energy poverty.” High energy prices also directly affect the manufacturing and logistics firms that employ blue-collar workers at decent wages. Business relocation expert Joe Vranich notes that industrial firms account for many of the 2,000 employers that left the state this decade. California’s industrial growth has fallen to the bottom tier of states; last year, it ranked 44th, with a rate of growth one-third to one-quarter that of prime competitors like Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.
Reality is asserting itself, though. Tech firms already show signs of restlessness with the current regulatory regime and appear to be shifting employment to other states, notably Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. Economic-modeling firm Emsi estimates that several states—Idaho, Tennessee, Washington, and Utah—are growing their tech employment faster than California. The state is losing momentum in professional and technical services—the largest high-wage sector—and now stands roughly in the middle of the pack behind other western states such as Texas, Tennessee, and Florida.
On its current course, California increasingly resembles a model of what the late Taichi Sakaiya called “high-tech feudalism,” with a small population of wealthy residents and a growing mass of modern-day serfs.
Folks, as we often say at the editorial board meetings, California hasn’t hit bottom yet. I predicted that if Trump won in 2016 that he would bring prosperity to the nation and the benefit that California enjoyed would just enable them to dig a deeper hole. That is what is happening now. The financial solvency of the state’s government is built on Silicon Valley and Hollywood. When our economy catches a cold, California will suffer a fatal case of pneumonia. Too bad there’s no viable alternative offered by the minority political party.
My 15-year-old Ford with over 178k miles on it finally took a dive. We had a great run, but the prognosis was terminal, in the sense that the repair needed would likely result in a bill north of $3,000, and quite frankly, the car really isn’t worth that much.
I was in a bad spot, I knew this day was coming and I had money saved up, but like they say, the worst time to buy a car is when you are desperate. Of course, advice was given by any and everyone. People suggested “best time to buy is year-end” and “Go to CarMax.” The suggestions were good, but I really needed wheels that day, it was October. I had always driven an SUV and thought I may have wanted something different. Problem is, I did not have time on my hands, I work, I own part of a business. I took some advice and was looking at Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks. They hold their value very well and are far less expensive than their “American” counterparts.
I filled out an online form and instantly it was sent to every dealership within an hour radius from my house. Within about 10 minutes, the emails and calls were coming in like crazy. Merced, Lodi, Elk Grove, Sacramento, Vallejo, Roseville, you name it. I was literally whacking away car salesmen from all corners of the area. It was mentally draining, but in a sense, I was prepared. I knew what I wanted and was able to stick to my guns. This was a key, I wanted a 2018 Tacoma, SR5 double cab, super white color.
2018 Tacoma, SR5 double cab
It is very similar to an SUV, keep in mind I had done some homework and unless my terms were met, I was walking. The salespeople at Vallejo and Merced were by far the most accommodating, but the locations were too far away for my liking. The Lodi guy won me over because he told me, find the best offer and he would match it. So, I went to Elk Grove and puttered around the lot. The sales guy tried talking me into something else, the access cab, which has a single side door for the backseat, in essence a typical truck, a cab, and a bed. I didn’t want it, but he knew best, he was trying to buffalo me, and I said I would go check out the Ford and Chevy lot, both conveniently located across the street. Just to give you an idea of how expensive cars are; the Tacoma ran around $33k sticker price, F-150 and the Silverado ran about 50k sticker, one F-150 Raptor edition ran about 100k, yes for a pickup truck.
I got my best offer from Merced and called down in Lodi. The guy told me, we had a deal and to see him tomorrow at 7pm. I was going to lease the truck, which if you aren’t aware, is similar to renting, you pay virtually no interest since you are taking the depreciation hit. I have a 3-year lease for 12k miles a year, if I decide not to keep the truck in 3 years and the mileage is over 36K, I pay a $.25 a mile overage penalty. Yikes, but it won’t be an issue. You also know the price you will pay at the end of the 3-year lease, and they take care of all the maintenance free of charge. If you so choose, you can be driving a new car every 3 years, the downside is you do have a car payment, which I have never had before. I had gotten counsel from people I knew who had leased and was about to head to Lodi. He called and said we have a problem, no 2018 in Super white, deal was in peril. He said he would get back to me, but they had other colors, I wanted white, not sandstorm or electric blue, or fire engine red. Great! I was desperate for a car and was going to get screwed.
Not so fast, he called back and said they have a 2019 in the aforementioned white, and had all I wanted, he even said he would honor the price, but deal was needed asap. I sped down there, and it had some cool extra features, snakeskin pattern on the seats, some tan upholstery, back up camera and more. I test drove it and shook his hand! Deal! Then the real fun began. I then had to visit the finance department, which promptly greeted me saying only the best buyers get your deal, and it was all subject to a credit check. I felt I would have no issue and I didn’t. The lady remarked that I had an 811-credit score and even knocked a few bucks off the payment. It was done, I left the dealer in my new truck.
The lesson learned is this, I had perfect credit history so in a sense I made the rules. They wanted me; others are not so fortunate. I was in a bad spot, but I came prepared. I knew what I wanted and had the salespeople compete over me. Most get credit terms unfavorable to them, I was lucky. I got what I wanted and my terms, it was a long time coming and I love my truck My advice, I would go through the same online channels I did; that way you deal with an internet sales guy not a typical car sales guy. I feel very blessed as I was in a horrible spot.
A few weeks ago, local media reported something that I had heard from my wife several weeks ago; namely, the shelves were bare at the local Fry’s Electronics store. Mrs. ReallyRight reported that she was assured by Fry’s employees that there was a glitch in their supply chain but that they weren’t going anywhere, the business was here to stay.
Here’s the report:
The parking lot was nearly empty, a sign on the door said “now hiring full-time merchandisers” and inside the store the shelves were largely bare.
On a Saturday afternoon just over two weeks before Christmas, the Toy Land at Fry’s Electronics in Roseville was deserted. There were no customers, there were no toys. One of the few salespeople on the floor said the Fry’s store in Natomas looked the same. He said staff had been told the company was “restructuring.”
Online reports show the same thing is happening at other Fry’s stores around the country and suggest the company is switching to a consignment business model, where shelves are stocked with products that Fry’s doesn’t have to pay for until they are sold.
A Fry’s spokesman told the Dallas Morning News the company is not liquidating or planning to close any stores. Spokesman Manuel Valerio told the Dallas newspaper the company’s 34 stores in nine states will have product again “over the next several weeks,” but that report was published Nov. 15.
Empty shelves @ Fry’s Electronics photo from KOVR-TV
Empty shelves @ Fry’s Electronics photo from KOVR-TV
Sounds to me like they are adopting the Best Buy/grocery store model of selling shelf space to others and just running the cash registers.
So how is this working for Best Buy? In my opinion not that well. I went into Best Buy over the weekend to get an item that I need for a Christmas gift. Much to my surprise, I was the line. There was one cash register open and I was the only one waiting. The good news is that I waited less than a minute. My thought was black what? Nobody is earning money tonight. The store was a ghost town. The employee to customer ratio was about one to one.
Let me know how your retail experience went but based on this, color me concerned about the future of brick and mortar technology stores. Will the rest go the way of the Good Guys and Incredible Universe in 2020?
Folks, I know I keep harping on Elon Musk and the utopian dream of all electric homes, cars, and life in general but as Clint Eastwood once famously said in one of his many Dirty Harry movies, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Now
Tesla has hardly any market penetration in the United States but is gaining in popularity in California but not without consequences. As I keep saying, charging these cars is a big deal. Look at the ridiculous lines over the Thanksgiving vacation just to keep Elon’s fleet on the road. Drivers waited up to an hour to get to a charger and then a decent charge takes 45 minutes.
Footage out of Kettleman City, the location of one of the largest supercharging sites boasting up to 40 chargers, shows drivers queued up back-to-back in a line about a half mile long.
Testy drivers attempting to juice up after Black Friday sounded off on social media, claiming the wait time was anywhere from thirty minutes to well over an hour.
Predictions of the future are worse. If 10 percent of California households owned a Tesla and try to charge them overnight, the resulting electric demand would crash the electric grid and that’s assuming PG&E and Southern Cal Edison are maintaining their gear.
As we have previously documented on this blog, given current rates of worldwide mineral production and demand, Great Britain cannot achieve its goal of an all-electric fleet of vehicles by 2040—this calculation is assuming that nobody else in the world like maybe California is simultaneously trying to do the same thing.
Long-term
Worse yet, another battery (pun intended) of reports has even more dire warnings about our dependence on technology. At current rates of production, six vital minerals used in high tech devices like self-driving cars and smartphones will be gone within 100 years.
Besides the raw waste, mobile devices contain “conflict elements” like gold, toxic elements such as arsenic and rare elements like indium, the Royal Society of Chemistry said. “Natural sources of six of the elements found in mobile phones are set to run out within the next 100 years,” it added.
Another concern over the recycling of unused devices is that they often contain what are known as “conflict elements” such as tin, gold, tungsten and tantalum, which are mined in areas where battles and child labour are often a routine part of their mining.
“There are about 30 different elements just in a smartphone,” said Elisabeth Ratcliffe from the Royal Society of Chemistry, “and many of them are very rare.”
The metal indium, she explained, is used in a unique compound called indium tin oxide, which is vital for touch screens, because it conducts electricity and is transparent. “It’s also used in solar panels, so we’re going to need a lot of it in the future.
“There’s not a lot of it in the Earth and you need a kilo of ore to extract just a few milligrams of indium.”
Most of us will not have heard of tantalum, but it’s a highly corrosion-resistant metal that is “perfect for small electronic devices like our phones”, explained Ms Ratcliffe. “But it’s also perfect for hearing aids and pace-makers,” she told BBC News.
Scientists estimate that indium and tantalum mines, among others, could run out within a century. Meanwhile, our demand for new technology continues to increase.
“Even the copper in all that wire is not endlessly abundant,” added Ms Ratcliffe.
Elements in smart phones that could run out within the next 100 years
Gallium: Used in medical thermometers, LEDs, solar panels, telescopes and has possible anti-cancer properties;
Arsenic: Used in fireworks, as a wood preserver;
Silver: Used in mirrors, reactive lenses that darken in sunlight, antibacterial clothing and gloves for use with touch-screens;
Indium: Used in transistors, microchips, fire-sprinkler systems, as a coating for ball-bearings in Formula One cars and solar panels;
Yttrium: Used in white LED lights, camera lenses and can be used to treat some cancers;
Tantalum: Used in surgical implants, electrodes for neon lights, turbine blades, rocket nozzles and nose caps for supersonic aircraft, hearing aids and pacemakers.
Before this series of articles, I’d never heard the term “conflict elements.” I guess folks were successful with turning “conflict diamonds” into “blood diamonds” so I guess now we can call things “blood Teslas” or “blood iPhones” or “blood solar panels”, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Oh, and child/slave labor also gets a shout-out in these articles too.
It seems that Liberals are torn between telling you to recycle your old gizmos and guilt tripping folks that love technology. Maybe they’ll try doing both. Folks look for this pending shortage to be a way to raise even more taxes on recycling when you buy new stuff—even if it really ends up in the landfill. And if the predictions start to pan-out as being true, look for Elon Musk to propose mining asteroids, the Moon, or some other astronomical body to keep our stuff in production.
Bottom-line: Government planners and technology manufacturers seem to be on a collision course with reality. Mineral production is far less than long term demand and nothing will change that anytime soon.
Lastly, look for this as a future way to weaponize a movement against technology for the masses.
McClatchy Corporation, parent of our local rag the Sacramento Bee, is teetering on the brink of insolvency, so I figured I would explain to their employees and writers how this occurred. Basically, McClatchy is headquartered downtown and is, in a sense, a newspaper conglomerate. It grew over the years from a small family owned (McClatchy family) paper into a large publicly traded company.
Over the years, they bought a few other daily papers and in 2006 they purchased a company far larger than them; Knight-Ridder–owners of about 20 daily papers; thus, forming a company with 30 daily newspapers. McClatchy is now the second largest newspaper chain in the US. However, the deal was ill fated; so much so that many analysts called it akin to a dolphin swallowing a whale. We entered a large recession soon after the purchase and by 2008 the company had lost 98% of its value. McClatchy’s stock was trading for less than a dollar! The executives did some financial engineering, stock splits, private investment, and sold some assets (the headquarters building) and stemmed a little of the bleeding. The company had layoffs and buyouts offered to employees every year, they even tried to grow digital (currently $129.99 yearly), but it’s been a slow climb. Finally, these past couple weeks, the company has finally realized the fate lies in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.
Suddenly, it seems, everyone is talking about McClatchy’s future. A week ago the Sacramento-based company, the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain, said it’s facing a potential cash shortage. The news touched off speculation about the publisher’s future, including a potential sale of the company.
And, for the first time since its finances began deteriorating more than a decade ago, the company is publicly contemplating the possibility of filing for Chapter 11 reorganization.
McClatchy stock for Oct 23 – Nov 22, 2019 Current share value 36 cents
How bad did things get at McClatchy? They haven’t made a pension payment since 2009, and to remain compliant they must pay in 124 million by next year…more cash than the company has on hand. So, the answer is to foist this payment on the taxpayers!
… (McClatchy) has approached the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. about taking over its pension plan — a move that, if successful, would alleviate the need to contribute $124 million into the plan next year.
McClatchy said it approached the government about the pension plan after the Internal Revenue Service rejected McClatchy’s request for a three-year waiver on its required pension contributions. Without the waiver, McClatchy is due to pay $124 million into the plan next year, a sum that “greatly exceeds the company’s anticipated cash balances and cash flow,” McClatchy said in a prepared statement.
McClatchy also needs to work out a deal with their largest creditor Chatham Asset Management. McClatchy currently owes 708 million in debt and they have no means by which to even cover the interest anymore. Essentially, they need Trump impeached and Obama re-instated in the White House and to hope for an automaker-esque government bailout. Because as two Standard & Poor’s (S&P) analysts on Wall Street say, McClatchy will run out of cash by September next year. If you are wondering, the company will likely file Chapter 11 early next year after the Pension Guarantee Corporation declines the request to take over their pensions. To further their arrogance, McClatchy approached the Tribune, a larger company, about a merger to, in a sense, continue to delay the inevitable. Just adding more debt and more cash flow to service the debt into the future…sound familiar?
… a deal with Tribune would make a lot of sense for McClatchy because it could spread its debt over “a much larger cash flow. The (combined) company would be in much better shape than McClatchy is.”
Those talks fell apart.
This company is toast and they did it all to themselves.
Allow me to explain. They bought Knight-Ridder, which was a mistake. The family (McClatchy) owns 80% of the voting rights so what they want/say goes and no one can object. Currently, papers are dying and real journalism is going down with it. To say not a soul foresaw this should be criminal. To be fair Warren Buffett was buying papers and everyone likes to mimic the Oracle of Omaha. The debt pile was manageable for a while, but circulations decreased every year, the gig economy took away the need for classified ads, the wanted ads were replaced by Craigslist and the like. Worse yet, the papers decided to go on a war path criticizing any politician on the right, and openly rooting for any left-wing loon…hence the rise of Obama. This caused a huge readership decline, yet they doubled down on their arrogance. So, they helped push Obama over the finish line to a second term while denigrating Mitt Romney and his supporters. This caused another decline in readership. The rise of the smartphone and smart technology was never dealt with, people stopped needing a daily reader, as most updates on a third-party news app would make the paper pointless. None of this mattered. McClatchy continued doubling down on an ever-shrinking audience, Trump won, and the paper changed its tune, saying now they would hold all politicians accountable…. that’s laughable and everyone saw through it. Recently having pushed false narratives such as; Russian collusion, Ukraine quid pro quo, and a slew of other garbage not fit for print.
Now a closer examination of the leftist rag in McClatchy’s own backyard the Sacramento Bee. This paper hasn’t been worth anything in years, several scandals involving Democrat elected officials in our capital (literally blocks from the paper) went unreported (by the way they have an entire Capital Bureau mind you). Hard news became unchecked opinion pushed as fact. They no longer have a beat writer for the NBA team (again they play just down the street) and all the columns are now Associated Press as opposed to local journalists. They attack our elected sheriff yet ignore our Legislature and District Attorney when they decline to prosecute criminals or release them early . They criticize a super minority of Republicans in the Legislature, yet they have ignored the rampant malfeasance of Democrats in the Legislature and elected office such as our Insurance Commissioner’s scandalous pay-to-play policy. They employ Marcos Breton and allow local sewer rat, Bruce Maimon, to spew their stink daily; yet told Dan Walters, their last good reporter, to take a hike. Rumor has it, Walters does a periodic column, but he is happily retired, and I am happy for him! The local section disappeared; the food critic changes over more frequently than The Troll stalks Hope Hicks. Memo to the Bee, there is an app called Yelp; look it up. Your food critic is dead weight, and no one cares. Your sports section stinks, very little local coverage, not many people care about high school football. Recently the Bee announced that the Saturday paper will cease and be replaced with an expanded Friday and Sunday editions.
To support these shifts, starting on Feb. 22, we will no longer produce a printed newspaper on Saturday and will launch with a Weekend Edition that includes expanded newspapers on Fridays and Sundays. Many of the features that you enjoy on Saturday such as comics, puzzles, TV listings, real estate, home and garden and local sports coverage will now appear in expanded editions in print on Friday and Sunday. On Saturdays, we will continue to publish breaking local news to our website and social media platforms and we invite you to visit our website or eEdition, which replicates the experience of a printed newspaper online.
The Friday edition no one reads and the Sunday version you finish after your 8th cup of coffee all while ignoring the Saturday folks who read the comics or the puzzles, I’m sure the circulation won’t drop farther. When you get a papercut, chopping off entire limbs is not how I learned how to take care of myself.
Folks I feel compelled to make this point as well, McClatchy has been cooking the books on their circulation numbers for years. Papers like the Bee have two numbers that they use in order to sell advertising; namely, weekly circulation and the Sunday paper. Did you know that as a loss leader, the Sunday paper is given out to subscribers of other newspapers not owner by McClatchy? For the better part of a decade, here in Elk Grove, subscribers to the Laguna and Elk Grove Citizen are given the Sunday Bee for free? Its not just the paper that’s free but McClatchy pays for deliver to these homes too. As mentioned in the delivery article, AB-5 affects newspaper carriers too.
We also have an additional challenge in California. With the recent passage of AB 5, delivery costs for the printed newspaper will increase dramatically by 2021.
Fear not, leader of the slugs who operate and work for this corporation, Gary Wortel, had this to say after Sheriff Scott Jones lit into McClatchy, “What Sheriff Jones and the Deputy Sheriff’s Association say about our watchdog journalism is wrong. The Bee has been a leading independent local news organization and credible news source since 1857 and will continue to serve this community for decades to come.” Ah yes, Gary, “independent” is not a word I would use to describe your paper. The only chance you have of being around for a decade is if bankruptcy buys you more time.
Concerning the 20,000 people currently drawing a pension from McClatchy, Eliane Lintecum, the CFO and another leader of the slug brigade is banking on a Federal bailout of the pension plan. She had this to say about the company’s pension plans “we don’t believe their … pension benefits will be adversely affected” … if they get the bailout. Folks, would such a hope make you feel more secure in your retirement? What slugs!!!
Lastly chew on this trash which is conveniently listed atop each article of the Bee online:
Local news is more important than ever. Reporters are out in our communities each day, bringing you the latest news and holding leaders accountable. Subscribe — and encourage others to support local journalists with a digital subscription to The Sacramento Bee by using this link.
Thank you. And #ReadLocal
Hey McClatchy, you have hardly any reporters, you write very little about the local community, you hold no one accountable, and what the hell is the hash tag read local about? I guess it makes sense when you see a photo of McClatchy CEO Craig Forman, who may need a thicker pair of glasses to see through the mess he created.
The company is toast. The readers have either assumed room temperature, can no longer eat solid foods, live in assisted living, or don’t know which pro-noun to refer to themselves as. You were too late to digital, advertising is dropping, and the end is in sight. The best hope you have is that many still major in state sponsored journalism at the local university and don’t know any better. The last part being key, you control a group of slugs, they keep doing as told unaware they are trudging through a field of salt, watching their friends lose jobs and hoping for a turnaround…. No chance!
Hence the reason we here at Really Right refer to these journalists as “those with an IQ of a piece of meat” …as you leave them out too long, they spoil.
Three stories that make a difference that were buried in the last few days.
California is fulfilling their role as a take no prisoners, authoritarian regime. In the latest moves to ban the internal combustion engine and anything else that uses fossil fuels, California has created another list of politically incorrect people that are to be avoided. This time the list includes automakers that will not be allowed to sell to the State. First on the list are GM, Chrysler, Nissan, and Toyota.
Mary Nichols-California Air Resources Board
California issued a statement late Monday saying that as of January the state would only buy vehicles from automakers that recognize the California Air Resources Board’s authority to set tough greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. California also pledged only to do business with automakers that committed to stringent emissions reduction goals.
Separately, the state also said it will no longer buy sedans that are powered only by internal combustion engines, no matter who manufactures the car. It will buy only plug-in electric or hybrid sedans, although California would make an exception for certain public safety vehicles. That rule does not apply to SUV or truck purchases.
This list is in addition to the ones that prohibit State employees and athletic teams from California State Universities from traveling to other States because the States are pro-life or pro-marriage; both of which are outlawed in California. I’m sure a similar list banning travel to places based on gun ownership is also in the works.
As a result of this utopian B.S., Elon Musk looks to be the beneficiary of more taxpayer money that he didn’t really earn. Of course this will be in addition to the money being directed to him as a result of the solar panel mandate that begins in January. Elon, by far, is the most heavily subsidized fellow in the history of the planet. Elon gets more corporate welfare from the government than any defense contractor ever dreamed.
Elon Musk has tax money to burn
Next up is California oil production, a story which is told via two news accounts.
But since taking office in January, Newsom’s own department of energy management has approved 33 percent more new oil and gas drilling permits than were approved under Newsom’s predecessor Jerry Brown over the same period in 2018—a median of 174 permits to drill new oil, gas, and cyclic steam wells approved a month, based on Geologic Energy Management Division (CALGEM) reports analyzed by CityLab.
The rate of fracking permits approved also soared at the start of the year, up 109 percent through June.
The fact that fracking approvals in California had spiked in the new year was first reported in July by the FracTracker Alliance and Consumer Watchdog. Newsom responded quickly to the news, firing the head of the approving agency for employing regulators who owned stock in oil companies, and directing the department to stop approving fracking permits. Since June 28, California hasn’t cleared any new hydraulic fracturing projects. After publication of this story on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom announced he was fully stopping the permitting of new hydraulic fracturing pending independent scientific review. He also said he’d issue a moratorium on “new permits for steam-injected oil drilling.”
The lesson is, if you support jobs and energy then you won’t last long holding an appointed government office in California.
I think Chevron should move its headquarters from San Francisco to Texas ASAP and close all their California refineries when they go. If California wants to ban fossil fuels then I think the private sector should cooperate. Let’s give politicians a world without gasoline and diesel now. Why wait until 2040? After all, there’s no time like the present. Give fossil fuel users the same treatment that PG&E is giving their electrical customers. Clearly the environmentalist message is, if you hate the planet so much that you use fossil fuels, then you deserve some payback. You can’t break addiction without pain.
Oh and speaking of pain, our illustrious leaders also want to ban the last reliable fuel used to generate electricity, natural gas. (FYI nuclear is banned in California and hydroelectric is not considered renewable energy.)
Maybe we could shut natural gas off for a week or so in February just to show people what that’s really like. Maybe such a move right before the Primary Elections in March would cause voters to make more sensible choices on the ballot.
We speak about the perils of debt quite often on this blog and when I try to share my concerns with people it falls on deaf ears. Or in other cases I’m told “don’t worry about the national, state or county level debt everything will be fine” and “the creditors aren’t coming to take back our municipalities, possessions, and the like”. We are always told to take off the tinfoil hat, stop being alarmist…we don’t know what we are talking about…fine!
I want to share a story of an acquaintance of mine who lives his life with this same attitude about his own debt!
This guy is married with 2 kids; both of whom have hereditary health issues…first question is why have another kid if you know the issues are hereditary? Any who. They own a house near a golf course and own two new very nice cars; one a pickup truck and the other a Mercedes.
They also are the proud owners of $75k in credit card debt. Combined they bring in $7,500 a month, which is a very solid middle class income and should support such a lifestyle. However they have been doing nothing but keeping up with the “Joneses,” more on this later.
Sensing that he was in trouble, he asked for help from an organization for which I volunteer. I was tasked to visit him and evaluate whether a onetime gift of $2,000 would make a difference. I rolled my sleeves up and put my finance background and degree to work.
What I found was shocking. This guy took keeping up with the Joneses to a whole new level. In fact, I think the Joneses would have a hard time keeping up with this family! His house is pristine with every upgrade possible; granite counter tops, marble floors, top notch security system, I was in awe! I actually thought I was at the wrong house at first. I went over his expenses with him and the picture finally came into focus. Their expenses–mortgage, car payments and incidentals–totaled almost $6,200k a month. Keep in mind this is making only a minimum payment on the credit cards, so in essence the balance was growing each month. This guy and his family are on a debt treadmill and sadly they were about to fall off.
First recommendation, let’s sell the house. This guy and his wife both commute almost an hour each direction for work! Easy solution right? However, they are upside down by over $100k–even in today’s environment where housing prices are sky high. (I think there is/was a consolidation loan here). As a result, they are stuck in a house way above there means, but ok…moving on.
Let’s sell those cars. Who needs $900 a month in payments? You don’t need a brand new truck or a Mercedes just to get to work. But he can’t do that either because both loans are 7 years and the cars have nil value as far as a trade in goes…high mileage. What they need is an economical vehicle, one where they can forgo the expensive full coverage insurance. (As an agent by trade, I estimate economy vehicles run about $300 a month to insure).
Next, I brought up food expenses…$1K a month, that’s a lot of eating out, regardless of whether it’s a chain restaurant or fast food that is a lot of money. He didn’t want to make changes here either. So I looked next at the incidentals and said ditch the cable and security system, again resistance. I said you live near a golf course, you don’t need a security system, and this one was top of the line, think all remote controlled by your Alexa device, and every square inch of the place covered by cameras, almost as if it was an illegal marijuana grow. The cable thing I do not get one bit, it’s actually becoming a thing to cut the cord…oh well.
After looking at different options, it hit me that he had no intention of righting the ship. However, my appointed task was completed. I now needed to sign paperwork which determined if he could apply for a one-time grant of $2,000 to help with his situation.
As I contemplated this man’s situation, I was reminded of a quote from Dean Warner from Animal House“Being fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son.” In this man’s case, drunk refers to his debts. He is drunk on debt and the worst part; his wife and kids are unaware that there’s even a problem. Yes you read that right! He is on his second marriage and this one looks all but lost.
He claims that he is 100% reliant on this one-time grant to “help with his payments.” This is false. This money is just enough to kick the can past Christmas and hope in the future that a miracle happens. This guy doesn’t want help. He, like a growing number of voters in this country, want their debts wiped out…a clean start…a new slate. A fresh new start so he can spend again…but he doesn’t want bankruptcy or the consequences that come with it.
This is part of a larger problem in America today, we run our lives just like our Government. We spend money we do not have and make a minimum payment every month. By doing that we lie to ourselves, saying we paid our bills this month. We live in the moment without a plan for the future. In this family’s case, I hate to say it but a diet is not going to help. This family needs a significant lifestyle change. Their debt needs to be handled and living outside of their means must cease ASAP.
How would I handle this issue if it was me? Easy. Ditch the cable, security system, and other unnecessary add-ons. This will free up about $900, at least in my estimation. The $1,000 on food…cut that in half at least, decide you like ramen noodles and quit going out to eat. Start brown bagging it at lunch and cut out the fast food. That should amount to about $1,400 or so in extra cash. Use this money to start immediately paying down that credit card debt. Trade in both cars and get a couple economical rides that have higher mileage. You need to unload the car payments and high insurance bill. As far as your house goes, look at it as most people view an economy hotel, a place to lay your head and serve as a dwelling, not a place to entertain people. Frankly no one cares about your marble, granite, or anything else, it’s not medieval times and you don’t live in a castle. Learn how to do yard work so you can ditch the gardener, ditto for the housekeeper. Take a look at the Cadillac cell phone plan and get something cheaper. Oh, I bet that’s under long-term contract too.
Most importantly you need to sit down and have a review with your wife, she needs to know the situation. Be honest and have a plan that will work, more on that in a second. The short term disappointment she has in you will be ok in the long run because she has to know you were living a lie. Truth be told, you can’t afford a divorce so there is that. As far as attacking the debt goes, start with the lowest amount owed and pay that down first, then move to the next one. Try calling the lenders and try to negotiate a lower interest rate or something. Burn the phones finding anyway to cut your expenses, however stick to your plan, as credit card/cable/security companies love to try to talk you out of it, actually they have entire departments of commissioned associates dedicated to it. Put about $1K in a savings account for emergencies.
Cut up your credit cards. Do not put them away for “emergencies.” With your track record, you need to get rid of them, they got you into this mess. Oh, FYI birthdays and Christmas are not “emergencies.” Then find a non-profit debt consultant or watch some Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman videos on YouTube. Find somebody to hold you accountable. The biggest problem is you both have champagne taste on a beer budget. The climb out of this is not easy and will not be fun but it’s doable. Need vs Want?!?!?!?!?!?! Know/learn the difference.
Final point: as far as keeping up with the Joneses goes, remember this, the Joneses are most likely in the same shoes as you; spending money they do not have, trying to impress people they probably do not like, on stuff they don’t need. Stop treating your life like your fantasy football team. No one cares about your possessions just like they don’t care about your team.
I think you know my decision on giving him the $2K.
Johnnie Does
Editor’s note: Johnnie Does is spot-on with this article. My wife and I attended Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University five years ago. Since then we’ve paid over $100K in debt (not including our mortgage). This only works if both people in the marriage are committed to getting debt free but it is really worth it.
A rare Sunday alert coming from me, but I have inside information regarding a phone call placed by CA Governor Gavin Newsom. My sources tell me in the wake of the utility’s continued “zombie apocalypse,” shutting the power off for days with little or no warning, has irked our supreme leader so much he placed a call to Warren Buffett late Saturday night. No official word yet if this is the same “red line” phone Ronald Reagan installed to communicate directly with the Russians, alas here is what I have been told. Newsom has told Buffett he is fed up with PG&E’s lack of competence and morals, to the point that he wants the entire company sold and a new leadership team in place. Buffett has more than enough cash as his investment vehicle “Berkshire Hathaway” to make the purchase. My sources, (notice that’s plural) tell me Newsom wants Berkshire to buy the utility and be taken private. This will cut out as William likes to say the 90-day calendar and other reporting requirements with both Wall St, and the SEC.
Here in lies the problem, as corrupt and incompetent as PG&E is, the governor is acting illegally. He is not a shareholder, or an executive of the troubled utility. The decision to be made about a sale is up to the executives, and then voted on by the shareholders not the Governor. Why is he reaching out before another company has the chance? Is this because the city of San Francisco, where he used to infest as mayor, was rebuffed at their attempt to buy the company last week?
It’s not out of the question as Berkshire owns utilities in Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota, Nevada, and in the United Kingdom. There is no doubt he could be a qualified buyer, but why is the governor contacting him? Were prices discussed? What about concessions from the California Public Utility Commission? Since the governor appoints that board. I am sure a ton of SEC violations are occurring right now. If you are a shareholder…well, you’re getting wiped out, bondholder? Same. Union? You’ll be just fine.
Stay tuned but prepare to see movement on PG&E stock Monday, as this story will leak.
The editorial staff was having lunch at the salsa bar this past Monday and we discussed the goings on in a city which the Blog Father calls his adopted hometown. We discussed a myriad of different topics, arguments ensued, battle lines were drawn, red lines were crossed, and parties had to be separated. However, there was one thing we could all agree on; the City of Elk Grove, California in the Year of our Lord 2019, has finally decided to emerge from its status as a bedroom community and joined the ranks of becoming a real city. After 20 years, we were finally tired of living in the shadows of Sacramento, and with their announcement of a Soccer team coming in, we had to one up them. Boy did we ever, showing nary a regard for the taxpayers or future generations in the process.
Just to bring you up to speed, our city has a renegade history. Upon separating from Sacramento County and incorporating, we formed our own bus service (since rolled back into Sac Regional Transit), formed our own police department (now on its 5th chief of police now), subbed out the trash services because the county was overcharging us (we now pay more for services than the county customers do), built our own dog pound (again county was overcharging us), etc. But a series of moves this past several weeks have us even more flummoxed.
Not to be outdone, we also are now the proud owners of a $70k ribbon tree for the holiday season. That’s funny because we have a Dickens Faire where we light a tree in old Elk Grove. I guess this makes sense because old town has a stigma of being racist (all our council members let this go unchallenged) and I guess we believers get an old Christmas Tree while the non-believers get a $70k ribbon tree. We all know how this story ends, the tree gets vandalized or broken over the next couple years and we have to buy another one or face a certain lawsuit.
Elk Grove Dicken’s Faire
But it gets even better. This past week, our city decided to purchase a 15-acre parcel on the corner of Big Horn Blvd and Bruceville Road in what I would call a rapidly deteriorating part of town. (If you doubt me, drop in at WinCo Foods and check out the clientele.) This property will be used for low income housing, which I am sure is funded by grant money from the state and comes with a threat of build the units or face a fine.
City buys N.E. corner lot for $2.9 million
The biggest problem we, on the editorial staff, have is the process and the price. Local Psycho Lynn Wheat tried to halt the process for further discussion when she was overruled by the entire council, who by the way “allegedly” has two Republicans on it, who claim to be fiscally responsible, allegedly. So, we are going to pay $2.9 million for this plot of land…at the height of the real estate market…for vacant land. However, even more troubling is the purchase price. The current owner bought this plot for $1 million in October of 2017. Check my stats if you want, I’ve attached links. These reeks of a government corruption issue. How can the price of vacant land more than double in 2 years? And not a single one of our council members or our beloved mayor have an issue? Not throwing any accusations, but one member, who doubles as a PG&E Vice President has a spouse who is the best-known realtor in the Sacramento County area. Surely, she would have objected right? My house appreciated in value by, call it $100K in 5 years, but for a blank piece of property to more than double in value I think an investigation should be in order.
Elk Grove Aquatic Park
Add these to our aquatic center opening earlier this summer to major fanfare only for the City to increase entrance fees after deeming then inadequate after 1 weekend. Speaking of inadequate, the same center is up to its armpits in litigation because of defective workmanship. Cost effectiveness and fiscal savvy are clearly not on display.
I guess you can say it pays to be an elected official.
Welcome to the big time Elk Grove, thankfully as William pointed out, our city is “green” according to the auditor’s website meaning our financial health is fine, who knows where this spending puts us. Soon we’ll catch up to everyone else.
