It’s going to be a tough holiday season and that means the excuses are flying.

Let’s talk about it.

And a little update. Apparently there aren’t only 100 Americans stuck in Afghanistan, there are 439. Hmm. Does it seem that someone was lying about something.

 

It’s a Good Thing?

We are in the middle of the worst inflation in 30 years and we have a product shortage that will be in existence for the next year and a half according to Janet Yellen. Remember what I told…oh…day before yesterday? I told you the media’s new narrative is that inflation and supply shortages are a good thing. I even gave you some titles from the New York Time and Washington Post over the last couple of weeks not only telling us that that we should be happy for this economic mess but we should be appreciative of it because it will make us better humans?

Well, here’s another story from CNN.

CNN commentator, Fareed Zakaria said:

There are some major problems with Zakaria’s arguments:

• The reason people are leaving the market is not pay. It’s because they are being paid by the government not to work. They get more money being unemployed than by working.
• If pay was really the issue, we would have seen this before pandemic. We didn’t. There weren’t 10.4 million open jobs.
• He points to the pay of rich countries. This is an awful argument. The cost of living in these countries is way beyond our country.
  • Those countries he pointed to (Canada, Norway, Japan, UK, Denmark, Germany) have stagnant economies. They do not innovate. They do not create. They just produce.
  • These countries have very high taxes because they are nanny states. Countries like Norway and Denmark are actually trying to scale back on their taxes and nanny state programs.
  • The currency in these countries is weaker.
  • And the cost of living in these countries is very high. You are paying $11 for a Big Mac in Norway and a watermelon costs $65 in Japan.
• This attack on our capitalism ignores our accomplishments (as usual).
  • We’ve been to the moon.
  • We’ve been to every planet in the solar system. We took the first pictures of Pluto.
  • We invented the television, the phone, the smart phone, the computer, space flight, nuclear fission, the car, the Internet, the production line and let’s not forget baseball just to name a few things.
  • Outside of some really cool cruise ships, what has Norway created?

What this little diatribe is about is excusing the supply chain crisis by demonizing capitalism. It’s all crap.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-is-just-the-kind-of-chaos-the-american-economy-needs-cnn-praises-u-s-labor-shortage

 

Here’s Another One

Here is an article from vox.com called It’s Time for Americans to Buy Less Stuff by Terry Nguyen. This is the new talking point with the Left. It’s our fault that we want to be able to buy things. Our expectations to be able to consume products is what’s ending the world. I’m not exaggerating. The article starts simple enough:

In September, I started getting pesky emails from brands hinting that I should get a head start on my holiday shopping. Next came the headlines, and then the reminders from social media users dishing out the same advice. Holiday shopping starts a little earlier every year, but this isn’t just the typical push. People are encouraged to order their gifts as soon as possible or risk having packages arrive late, due to rampant supply chain disruptions and mailing delays. Even books (yes, books!) aren’t safe from the impending shortages.

The holiday shopping industrial complex feels especially unavoidable in 2021, with Halloween still more than a week away. Amazon, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart have launched early-bird sales, and retailers are preparing to dish out millions of dollars on ads for strong fourth-quarter sales.

A lot of that is true. Then the opinion piece goes darker:

Early holiday shopping sprees are good news for retail corporations, logistics companies, and the US economy, but bad, ultimately, for millions of workers (manufacturing, retail, logistics, warehouse) and the planet. Instead of opting to order our Christmas presents early, perhaps now is the time to reconsider America’s great shopping addiction.

There we go.

• The poor workers. That’s what we saw from CNN in the last story.
• The planet will blow up if I buy that X-Box. You will actually hear this later.
• American consumers are bad and, because buying stuff is destroying the climate, are evil.
• Here’s something the article, or the Left in general, ever points out is the worker is also the consumer. They keep thinking only the rich but stuff. Most stuff is not bought by the rich. It’s bought by the worker. So the victim is also the evil ones.

When the stuff we want is so hard to get ahold of, why go to such great lengths to buy it? Consumers have the option to not order items manufactured overseas, to source things locally from small businesses or artisans. We also have a choice that eliminates the potential for shipping or supply chain mishaps: We can just buy less.

We know that our collective consumption of consumer goods, from the creation of plastic toys to the fossil fuels that ship them to our homes, isn’t good for the environment. Yes, on a consumer level, our ability to control resource consumption is minimal, but that doesn’t mean there’s no good in a holiday season where gift exchanges don’t require an Amazon Prime account or transit via multiple shipping containers. Mindfulness has its own benefits, especially for affluent consumers, which includes America’s upper-middle class. The higher-income consumers among us use far more resources than the less well-off and are responsible for influencing shopping norms at large.

This is kind of pathetic. This is a usual attack by the Left. Rich versus poor.

• “Why buy it?” How about because it’s a good product and it will make life better.
• I actually agree with the statement not to order things produced over seas. The problem is that so much is created over seas including American products. That’s something a great American economy could handle if we didn’t overpay workers here.
• The environment thing is really annoying. Most Americans don’t even think it’s an issue.
• China produces twice the amount of CO2 that the United States produces yet that’s never brought up by Leftists. It’s always Americans that are destroying the world. Is it any wonder we don’t listen to people like Greta Thunberg?

Meanwhile, the growing severity of climate disasters threatens to impact how we produce, source, and ship these goods, raw materials, and the food we eat. Product shortages and delays, it seems, are the new normal. At the end of this logistic maze is the shopper, whose buying tendencies are cultivated and incentivized from a young age. The entire consumer enterprise could be summed up in one Ariana Grande lyric: “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.”

If these supply chain problems are expected to persist, however, we must be prepared to curb our shopping habits. Conscious or decreased consumption might not move the needle much on climate change or improve the exploitative working conditions faced by those who produce and ship our goods, but that doesn’t mean we have to be trapped in a cycle of thoughtless buying. The alternative isn’t a moral neutral. Must we continue to drown in our unlimited and unfettered need for more stuff, or could we start buying less?

Some things:

• Again nothing about China.
• Finally, he mentions that it is not only luxuries that are impacted by the supply chain crisis. It’s also necessities. Are we suppose to go without buying that?
• Ariana Grande is a product of the Left. She promotes free life without any moral boundaries including buying stuff and sex. Her demonization shows the hypocrisy of the Left.
• Thoughtless buying? Here’s what the Left is trying to get us to quit:
  • Cars.
  • Toilet paper.
  • Paper towels.
  • Beef.
  • Chicken.
•  The Left wants us to be a third world country.

Finally:

Reducing one’s carbon footprint requires more frugal sacrifices than buying less stuff (such as flying less, eating less meat, using more public transportation), but it’s a good place to start. This holiday season offers a bizarre, supply-chain-induced opportunity to change our shopping habits, to give more thoughtfully, to buy more locally and less overall. Most households are hard-wired to splurge on end-of-year gifts, and it’s unlikely people will ever stop even if the crisis worsens. The supply chain issues can, though, lead us to buy more conscientiously.

The mission to buy less with more intention is achievable for everyone, especially affluent shoppers. It’s incumbent on Americans, the wealthiest people in the world, to cut back on and be critical of their consumption. Plus, if you haven’t ordered that Xbox Series X for the lucky gamer in your life, you might already be out of luck.

How about this: No. Until the real carbon producers are called out, I don’t want to hear about the blame of American producers.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22725031/buying-less-supply-chain-holiday-shopping

 

Happy Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is going to suck if your cooking. I’m sure the Left is thrilled about this because Thanksgiving is a white supremacist celebration of of the genocide of indigenous people.

A recent New York Times report found that “Thanksgiving 2021 is shaping up to be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday.”

A recent October U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics report revealed:

For the year ended September 2021, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 5.4 percent. Over that period, prices for food at home increased 4.5 percent, driven by a 10.5-percent increase in prices for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs. Prices for food away from home increased 4.7 percent.

So what goes into this:

• Aluminum prices are at a high not seen in 10 years.
• Baked goods are up 2.7%.
• Vegetables and fruits are up 3%.
• Non-alcoholic beverages are up 3.7%.
• Turkey production is down 1.4% so be prepared to pay more and have shortages.

The New York Times reported:

Packaged dinner rolls will be pricier because the cost of almost all of the ingredients that commercial bakers use has gone up. Canned cranberry sauce will cost more because domestic steel plants have yet to catch up after pandemic shutdowns, and China is limiting steel production to reduce carbon emissions. As a result, steel prices have remained more than 200 percent higher than they were before the pandemic.

I love that the New York Times is claiming that China is lowering their output of cans because of the environment. That’s just crap. It’s the supply chain problem cause by Joe Biden.

The New York Times did something, I believe, by accident. It also contradicts the Vox article I just read. It is not just luxuries that are becoming hard to get (though communists do think food is a luxury such as China, Venezuela and Cuba). It is also the necessities that are becoming hard to get.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/thanksgiving-just-got-more-expensive