jas007

It never made much sense to me, but knowing her, she wasn't doing that because she loved flying. Maybe flying doesn't always make sense, but it must sometimes.

Someone should start a threat on airline points. I've never bothered to pay much attention to airline points and credit card points, but apparently, it's a great game for those who know the rules. I know a girl in California that is into points. When she doesn't have anything else to do, she'll fly around in airplanes, just to get points. How that works, I'm to sure, but she wouldn't be doing that if the flights cost more than the points she gets.

I'm in Thailand and I buy wine anyway, even though the price is sort of ridiculous. California wine that would cost $11 in the USA is 1000 baht here. I can see a little bit for shipping, but 1000m baht per bottle? Oh well. Someday, I'm going to price some really good wine and see what it costs.

Why everyone seems to think the tariffs are some sort of a crisis is beyond me. The tariffs are reciprocal. If a country doesn't like them, the solution is simple. Stop putting tariffs on things from the USA. Problem solved. By this time next month, no one will be talking about tariffs.

So, what's the alternative to all those tech names? Do they have any real competition, or will people just pay the price, whatever it is?

What's the quintessential song from the era? I could never pick just one. I might be able to make up a playlist. I'm old enough to have seen a lot of the music from that era, live. Either at concerts or in clubs. In NYC, I used to live in the Village, not far from CBGB. And around the corner was The Bottom Line. Both had live bands just about every day. And down the street? All the jazz clubs. At the time, it didn't seem like too much of a big deal, but in retrospect, I was really lucky. Today's music just doesn't seem the same and the concert scene just isn't the same. What do concert tickets cost today? $500? It used to be more like $7. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Yardbirds, MC5, T-Rex, Rickie Havens, Country Joe and the Fish, The Talking Heads, The Doobie Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Grateful Dead, Captain Beefhart, America... And I'm probably forgetting a bunch of the rock bands. I'll skip all the jazz greats.

I have a cousin like that. He goes out bar hopping and it has to be with a limo to drive him around. Mr. Big Shot. Anyway, if you've ever lived in Manhattan, the last thing you want there is to fool around with a car.

Back in the USA, when I was just 15 years old, the laws were such that a kid could rent a motorbike. A little 50 cc Honda or whatever. Anyway, all you needed was a learner's pernit license and a little cash and you could rent a motorbike. We did that a few times. We didn't think about helmets. And we didn't even try to be careful. I'm sure I'm extremely lucky to be here right now.

Much ado about nothing. The affected countries will likely lower their tariffs. What's made in America these days, in any event? Trump's term will be over before the world economy adjusts in any significant way. In the meantime, enjoy the stock market discount. As usual, the idiots are overreacting.

If you ask me, the entire tariff thing is being blown way out of proportion. Why? Because longstanding trade patterns aren't going to reverse overnight. Trump's changes won't make a big difference overnight, and by the time they do, Trump's term will be over. If the tariffs were a disaster, it would be easy enough for the next President to reverse course. In the meantime, I think countries will perhaps lower their tariffs on US goods. Why not? What's made in the USA these days, in any event?

Perhaps the more likely outcome will be that the affected countries lower their tariffs. The tariffs are, after all, "reciprocal." I think that may already be happening, from what I heard this morning somewhere. Vietnam? Israel? I think that's what was said, although I wasn't paying too much attention.

Hardly "ill informed." I suppose you subscribe to the official narrative, hook, line, and sinker? In that case, Putin wants to invade the entire rest of the world, restore the old Soviet Union, and dominate the human race, all with a Russian GDP the size of Italy?

I'm sure they do, but at the end of the day, there's a human being that makes the decision, right? Is there some sort of rule whereby any expat can walk into the State Department office and get a ticket back to America?

Yes. But think for a minute. If the world ever gets to the point where only people with physical gold and silver or other commodities have any kind of "money," we're all in trouble. We'd be back to the stone ages and no one is really prepared for that.

It started in a lab, for sure, but the COVID thing wasn't a random lab leak. It's more sinister than that. Politics? Don't think left and right. Think up and down. Think Globalism and the New World Order. The DAVOS crowd, the depopulation agenda, big banks and big business and the extraction of money from the serfs.

It's good to have some gold, but you probably shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Lots of stocks will be doing very well, I think, from this point.

Hopefully, we're in store for another V-shaped recovery in the markets, especially in the tech sector. There's a lot of money that has to be invested somewhere, and the Fed isn't about to raise interest rates to entice investors into the bond market. Think stagflation. The Fed will choose lower rates, for sure. Look for gold, silver, and commodities to do OK with the inflation we'll be seeing, and look for tech stocks to bounce back. Their correction is almost over, if not over already. The AI revolution is just getting started. Just my opinion, but why not? What's the alternative? Cash under the mattress?

Russia didn't "start" this war. Anyway, Ukraine just lost and if Trump and Putin agree to stop it, it will stop. Without the USA, Zelenskyy is nobody.

Trump won't resign and he isn't in that office to fleece money for himself and his family. We'll all be lucky, though, if we're ll still around in four years. Between the wars and the possible collapse of the economy, what are the odds?

I don't know where you're from or whether you're another vaccine victim, trying to rationalize your life and your poor choices. Anyway, America is OK, but I didn't like what was going on with the COVID thing one bit. I admit, for the first month or so, they almost had me fooled. But I was paying attention and a lot of things just didn't add up. How did the country ever get to the point where a small group of people decided the thing to do was to reduce the population of the world? I realize that idea has been floating around for decades, but somehow, they finally went ahead and did it. The evil people gained control and they did it. To this day, most of America doesn't realize what was done to them. They never question authority in any event, and they've been jabbed and so they need to tell themselves they did the right thing. The WHO and the CDC told everybody the jabs were "safe and effective," and they believed it. Yes, people are still playing golf or whatever. America is still there. But there damage is ongoing. Many didn't take the jabs at all, so maybe they'll be OK, despite evidence of vaccine "shedding." I'm waiting for the arrests to begin.

I'm not sure what Trump's game is, at this point. Surely, he must know that Zelenskyy is problematic and needs to go. If I were Putin, I wouldn't agree to anything with Zelenskyy involved. Zelensky doesn't want peace. It's just that simple. Why pretend otherwise?

Unfortunately, it's not the Iranian people so much as it is the small group that somehow rules the country. I guess that's pretty much how it works all over. In the USA, the people don't want any kind of war, and yet the people running the show want one war right after another, non-stop. Or, look at Europe. The European people don't want war, but much of Europe's Globalist leadership can't wait. They'd stat a war tomorrow, if they could.

I don't have to have anything. I'm not trying to prove a point. I'm just making an observation. The observation is that there are a lot of really gullible people who never question authority and simply follow the crowd. That's how they live. They do what they're told, they never question authority, and they're seemingly incapable of thinking for themselves. Why do that when you can just follow directions? That might actually work for them, most of the time. This time, they weren't so lucky. The name of the game: depopulation. Excess death numbers are already very very high in many parts of the world, as are cancer rates in parts of the population that shouldn't be having much cancer at all. Young people that should be healthy coming down with colon cancer. Cardiac issues. Blood clots, etc. Anyway, all you have to do is sit back and watch, at this point. RFK Jr. can tell anyone who wants to listen all about it. He's not just making things up. The facts are there. Gain of function research at Wuhan. Fauci's lies. Who contracted with the drug companies to manufacture the jabs and when. The attempted cover up of the side effects. Trying to convince people that Ivermectin was only a "horse dewormer." Downplaying the importance of vitamin D levels, zinc, and zinc ionophores. Exaggerating the risks for younger people by playing games with the statistics on viral transmission. I assume most people here lived through the entire COVID period. How many of those people were paying attention? How many people just believed what they were told? As usual, most people don't think for themselves. They think whatever the "authorities" tell them to think. And at this late date, if they haven't put two and two together, nothing I say here will convince them they were the victims. Apparently, that would destroy their view of the world. It's not at all hard, in retrospect, to see the lies. I thought we were past all the nonsense, but it does surprise me how many people still cling to the official narrative. Truly amazing. In a larger sense, it would seem s though propaganda truly is a powerful tool. May of the same people who were COVID jab victims are now out defacing Tesla's because the mainstream media tells them that Elon Musk is the great evil. Again, people who seemingly cannot think for themselves.

In case you haven't kept up, Tesla its much much more than a car company.

But it's not about who has a "right" to be there, is it? It's about reality. And the reality is that Russia has won the war, and with every day that goes by without a settlement, what's left of Ukraine becomes smaller and smaller. For Ukraine, Zelenskyy is counterproductive.