Category Archives: economic news

Musk poses grave danger

Elon Musk is emerging as the most dangerous man in America, thanks to the weird kinship he has formed with the next president of the United States.

Musk, as we all know, is the world’s richest man. He has filled Donald Trump’s vacuous noggin with notions that he can fix what’s wrong the federal government. He — along with right-wing blowhard Vivek Ramaswamy — leads a government reform project, or some such thing, that seeks to cut trillions of dollars from the government coffers.

Americans have elected Musk to no political office. He has no political standing other than his strange relationship with Trump. Musk has emerged as a sort of de facto co-president, if you dare swallow that bit of information in one bite.

The guy frightens the hell out of me. He ought to scare the bejabbers out of anyone who has this sort of love affair with good government. That should be all Americans who prefer that the president and Congress go back to what the late Sen. John McCain would call “regular order.”

There is not a damn thing that is “regular” about the way the next POTUS and Congress are getting ready to take the reins of power.

Trump figures to rely on the machinations of Musk — and, of course, Ramaswamy — as he proposes spending cuts.

This dude Musk, though, is one scary son of a … well, you know.

McKinney airport to expand … but, why?

Perhaps there’s something that has sailed over my pointy head, but I’ll ask anyway: What is it that prevents McKinney Mayor George Fuller from accepting “no” from voters about expanding McKinney National Airport?

Fuller says he intends to spend budgeted money to expand the airport and introduce commercial air travel to the facility by 2026. He says this despite voters in his city twice refusing bond issues that called for the airport expansion.

I must stipulate I do not live in McKinney.  My home in Princeton is about six miles east of the airport and, yes, I do drive past the airport frequently as I scurry about on local errands. I also must stipulate that I do not necessarily oppose expanding the airport and I would welcome commercial air travel from a nearby terminal rather than driving all the way to D/FW International Airport or Love Field.

But the issue isn’t mine to decide.

According to the Princeton Herald: “Fuller said the city would use $60 million in bonds secured by airport sales tax revenue to fund construction of a 45,000-square foot passenger terminal and a parking lot for about 1,500 vehicles. The project manager said the size would vary according to tenant needs.”

Voters scuttled a $200 bond issue in May 2023 and rejected a smaller proposal in 2015.

I recall the 2023 campaign and opponents were clear that they didn’t want to see an increase in traffic in their city.

Does the new idea pitched by Fuller mean a return to those concerns? I don’t know. I do believe, though, that the mayor might be prompting some backlash from voters if they continue to resist calls for an expansion that could bring those concerns back into play.

If voters say “no,” that should stand as their decision.

Feeling vulnerable

I am feeling an odd sense of vulnerability these days we await the second version of Donald Trump’s White House tour.

You see, he’s hired a couple of hot shots and hot heads to “reform” federal government spending. Zillionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been yammering that “everything” is on the table for possible elimination.

You ask, “Everything?” That’s what these two dips**** say. That means, dare I suggest, Social Security.

Why the vulnerability? Because I rely on my Social Security income to enable me to live comfortably in North Texas. I just turned 75 and I am not willing to go back to work to shore up my income. I did that for a lot of years. I paid a lot of money into the SSI fund from which I am now drawing my income.

I am aware that financial advisers tell us we shouldn’t rely on SSI as our primary retirement income source. That’s fine … if you’re filthy rich, which I am not. I do have a retirement fund, but I refuse to spend it all on daily essentials. Therefore, I rely on SSI to buy groceries and help me pay utilities and so forth.

What will the feds do to that income source for me and millions of other old folks? That remains to be seen. I get the heebie-jeebies when I hear Musk and that loudmouth Ramaswamy blather on about the federal programs they plan to eliminate through that Government Efficiency program they head up.

Donald Trump says he won’t touch Social Security. Do you believe him? Hah! Me, neither.

Those clowns had better tread carefully if they start messing with our income stream.

Rich will remain rich!

Kamala Harris is starting to talk in detail about an economic policy she plans to invoke if she’s elected president of the United States in just a tad less than six weeks.

She wants to cut middle-class income tax; she wants to offer first-time homebuyers a $25,000 boost to get them into their version of the American Dream; Harris wants to make sure that the mega-wealthy among us “pay their fair share of taxes.”

Let’s stop briefly on that final point.

The vice president is understandably enraged that the wealthiest Americans pay less in income tax than those who earn a tiny fraction of the rich folks earn. So am I. So should the rest of us be enraged.

Here is a message I do not hear enough and which I believe Harris and her running mate Tim Walz need to press further.

Even if the richest Americans pay their fair share of taxes — an act that would lighten the load on the rest of us — the richest Americans are still going to be filthy rich! They will not lose their fortune! Billionaires will continue to count their assets in the billions of dollars! They’ll still live in fancy houses, be driven around in fancy cars and they still be able to send their children to the most exclusive schools.

This argument, in my humble view, would make it difficult for the Billionaire Rich Guy/Gal Category to argue that it’s OK for them to skip out from under their tax burden.

I just have to ask: Why is this argument so difficult to sell to an overtaxed, overburdened voting public?

Harris, Trump agree? Wow!

Who’da thunk this could happen, that Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump would agree on a significant public policy issue?

Both candidates for POTUS agree that service workers who rely on tips shouldn’t have to be taxed on that portion of their income.

Trump tossed the idea out there first. Harris has followed suit. Trump, though, is contending that Harris “stole” the idea from him and is trying to win favor with voters by casting this notion as her own.

Holy taxman!

I happen to agree that tip income need not be taxed. If you’re working as a server in a restaurant, you’re already earning something below the national minimum wage. Tips are meant to supplement the meager wage these folks are earning.

Harris wants to take the issue a step further. She wants to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, something that Trump opposes. Spoiler alert: I support Harris’s idea.

But really, there’s no “theft” involved in one candidate endorsing an idea pitched by an opponent. Then again, I tend to believe Donald Trump is going to take a lot more credit that he doesn’t deserve on issues that Harris endorses along the way.

A boondoggle in the making?

My chronic nosiness sometimes gets the better of me, particularly when I see large public projects seemingly abandoned.

I am referring in this instance to what I have been calling a “boondoggle in the making” around the corner and down the street from my Princeton, Texas, home.

I reached out to someone in authority at City Hall the other day to ask about the status of the “apartment monstrosity” under construction on the south side of US 380 just east of Walmart. The answer I got? “It’s being handled by ‘legal.'”

Hmm. OK. I asked a follow-up question: Does that mean the project is stalled? No answer has been forthcoming.

Now, I spent more than 36 years as a reporter and editor for two reputable newspapers in Texas and one in Oregon. My job was to sniff out problems when I suspected they were occurring. My gut — in addition to my trick knee — are telling me the city has a problem on its hands.

Princeton City Council approved a massive construction project to build a massive complex of “luxury apartments” on US 380. Site preparation was completed and several structures emerged right away. Work crews installed dry wall on several of the structures.

Then, about a year ago, work stopped at the site. A dispute between the developer and the general contractor led to some sort of work stoppage. The then-city manager told me at the time that they were working it out and that work would resume shortly.

Well, “shortly” never arrived, or so I understand. I haven’t seen any sign of human life on the construction site in weeks. The gates are closed and padlocked. The weather has at times been cold and damp, perhaps damaging the unprotected structures.

I am believing in my bones that the city has a problem in the form of an unfinished apartment complex that is looking more each day like a gigantic eyesore.

Cryptic answers about “legal” counsel answering questions gives me reason — I believe — to be deeply concerned about the future of this blight on our rapidly growing community.

Yes, I am better off

Allow me to make this declaration … as if you can stop me from making it.

Here goes: I am better off by a long shot than I was four years ago.

The question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”, is getting some traction of late. Republicans are saying “no!” They want to tar President Biden with a phony economic crisis, suggesting that the recovery from the COVID pandemic is a figment of our imagination.

It isn’t. Our economy is robust. It is — to borrow the phrase — “rocking along” by producing a record number of new jobs, historically low unemployment, a shrinking national budget deficit, an inflation rate that is stabilizing and shrinking, too.

Yes, the nation is better off than it was when Joe Biden took office as president. I won’t listen to the lies put forth by his immediate presidential predecessor.

Are in perfect condition? Of course not! Perfection is an impossibility.

But we’re damn sure better than we were.

Age = experience

So, the talking point now on the 2024 election appears to be that Joe Biden is “too old” to continue as president of the United States.

What … utter … pig … dookie!

President Biden met earlier this week with four congressional leaders of both parties in the White House. Present were Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The word coming out of the meeting? The fear of a government shutdown effective on Saturday appears to have waned … significantly! How’s that?

Well, it appears that Biden brought his 36 years of experience as a U.S. senator to bear. Oh, he also had those eight years as VP prior to being elected president in 2020.

The man’s experience in working through these knotty matters is invaluable. He knows the language of the Senate; he’s fluent in it, given that he spoke it for so long.

I am not going to accept any notion that POTUS’s mental acuity is in decline. Yes, he’s got lots of miles piled onto his 81-year-old body. However, he is continuing to demonstrate an ability to work through the gritty details of government.

He knows the complexities of working with such a cumbersome form of government that we have in this constitutional republic of ours. I am now thinking of the probable alternative to a president who has devoted his entire professional life to public service.

I will settle any day of the week for the experience that Joe Biden brings to work every day over the chaos that no doubt will accompany the idiot who wants the job that President Biden continues to do well.

Loathe the man and his standing

My noggin cannot comprehend a lot of things in life, so to be clear I want to stipulate that at times I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Among the more incomprehensible elements of life that puzzles me is the standing that the 45th POTUS continues to have among Americans who think he deserves another term in the White House.

I won’t regurgitate the many negative comments I have made about him since the moment he and his wife rode down the NYC office tower escalator in June 2015 as he announced his first run for the presidency.

I’ll make one exception, though. I want to remind every reader of this blog of this fact, which is beyond dispute: This bozo spent his entire adult professional life — every … waking … minute of it — with one goal in mind: self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. He did not devote a single moment of his miserable life to public service.

Yet he stood there and proclaimed himself to be the champion of the “little guy,” the individual he personally loathed as a “loser” and a chump. He called himself a populist, even though he likely doesn’t know the definition of the type of pol he proclaimed himself to be.

His goal in life was to make lots of money for himself. It has been revealed now in court proceedings brought against him that he is as Mitt Romney described him: a “phony and a fraud.”

Anyone human being who feels the need to declare out loud the he is “really rich” and “really smart” never achieves such wealth, nor is he smart enough to know that undeniable fact.

Yet here this guy stands. He was impeached twice by the U.S. House. He has been indicted four times by federal and state grand juries on 91 criminal counts. He vows to be “your retribution” if he’s elected later this year.

And they still believe in this guy?

God help us if this all comes to pass.

Economy gets in GOP’s way

Republicans have been hoping for an economic collapse to fuel their mantra that President Biden’s stewardship on our finances would lead them back to the White House.

Except that the news just keeps getting better.

This week the Labor Department announced the economy added 353,000 jobs to the workforce. The unemployment remains at 3.7%. Inflation is under control. Wages and salaries are outdistancing the inflation rate. Mortgage interest rates are sliding down.

What the heck? The GOP presidential frontrunner can’t make the case that Joe Biden’s policies aren’t working. Instead, he’s left to look for other issues with which to bludgeon the president.

Politico reports: And though far from certain, it’s now possible that the nation’s economic health could become an electoral asset for Biden in an unexpected way.

“I think that is the question of the day,” said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks who is close to the Trump campaign. “You can’t blame the president when policies go wrong, and then say he’s not responsible if things are going right.”

Biden’s economy keeps messing up Trump’s message – POLITICO

Moore touches on a singular political reality, which is that presidents too often take blame they don’t deserve while being denied any credit they might earn. That is true for presidents of either party. So often matters out of their control dictate downward economic spirals.

The inflation rate is an example. Americans who endured the COVID-19 pandemic were denied opportunities to purchase big-ticket items. Then the pandemic broke and Americans released all that pent-up demand, which contributed to skyrocketing inflation at almost every level.

Who took the blame? Joe Biden!

Then the president pitched what he called the Inflation Reduction Act. Congress enacted it. The IRA intent was to target the supply chain, seeking to loosen it sufficiently. It worked. Inflation is under control.

Has the POTUS gained much from the impact of the IRA? Not yet!

The economy is fading as a talking point that Republicans can use against Joe Biden. The president’s campaign team now must devise a message that drives the point home that, yes, we are better off than we were four years ago.