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dixiegrrrrl

dixiegrrrrl's Journal
dixiegrrrrl's Journal
November 12, 2021

To the doubters and skeptics, I have but 2 words.......

Neener Neener..........

November 1, 2021

Things I want to know before I go.


My 76th b-day is coming up in a few weeks....obviously time has stopped marching on and is now trotting.

before I go, I want to find out:

1. What did trump say to Justice Kennedy to make him resign from SCOTUS?
2. What did Putin tell trump at their private meeting that made trump look like a whipped dog when they emerged.
3. What is the real secret behind golden showers?
4. Who killed Epstein, and why ( tho that might a bit obvious)
5. What are all the schemes that Jared pulled for personal enrichment since 2016? ( besides selling pardons and selling Covid PPE from the National warehouse.

What is on your list?
November 1, 2021

we had pretty good Covid news here


Mr. Dixie had to go to ER for emergency problem, not related to Covid, then to ICU for 5 days, here at our local rural hospital.

I was very concerned because of super high covid rate in our red state/county, and our being high risk, even with vaccinations and precautions.

When he was discharged he reported he was the only patient in the ICU the whole 5 days.
Thank you, Higher Power.

So he's fine now and our concerns about Covid were allayed.

Big whew!!!!!

Hoping this is a sign of progress for our area ( even tho I don't put it past our Repub. gov. to screw any recovery up)

And thanks to Medicare we won't have to mortgage the house.
October 28, 2021

Welcome to "skimpflation"



"Shrinkflation" is when the price of stuff stays the same, but the amount you get goes down.

The economy-wide decline in service quality that we’re now seeing is something different, and it doesn’t have a good name. It’s a situation where we’re paying the same or more for services, but they kinda suck compared to what they used to be. We propose a new word to describe this stealth-ninja kind of inflation: skimpflation. It’s when, instead of simply raising prices, companies skimp on the goods and services they provide.

Businesses are having a hard time finding workers at the wages they used to pay.
Whether it’s because they can’t afford to, or they don’t want to, or they’re being greedy — i
nstead of enticing workers with higher wages, many businesses are cutting back on the quality of their services in order to stay profitable.
Oxford dictionary definition of the word skimp seems to fit what they’re doing: “expend or use less time, money, or material on something than is necessary in an attempt to economize.”

skimpflation is a form of inflation. As with normal inflation, it means we’re getting less for our money. And some argue the government is failing to properly account for this kind of inflation when crunching official statistics.


*don't want to or being greedy*

I remember a time post Reagan when companies used to run by selling something, paying expenses from the sales, and what was left over was a good enough profit.

Now they feel compelled to make bigger and bigger profits every quarter/year
no matter what they have to cut in order to do so, to protect/expand salaries and stock of the executives.
It's now the norm, just like it was in the Robber Baron era. So their earnings spiral upward to protect stock price, while employees' wages are put into a downward spiral.
the Robber Baron system liked having hordes of unemployed who would feel compelled to work for peanuts to avoid starving.

So it's fascinating to see now that businesses are begging for workers, and being forced to raise wages in order to entice them, while making their customers accept less in goods and services.
Because god forbid company Execs. accept any decrease in their own salaries.


https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/26/1048892388/meet-skimpflation-a-reason-inflation-is-worse-than-the-government-says-it-is
October 27, 2021

The reason for such high rise in prices is partly because....



The things that we buy which have to be send from overseas costs more because:

Ocean-freight rates to bring goods from China to U.S. West Coast ports peaked at a record $20,586 per 40-foot container in September, and at more than $16,000 now remain multiples above the $1,590 pre-pandemic average.


Per Bloomberg, @

https://tinyurl.com/2y5hpecw


why the prices? Because of container shortages at the overseas end,
because thousands of empty containers are sitting at our ports and that means we have no more room to even unload the container ships that are parked outside the ports
which also increases prices for the stuff on them which now have become scarce for us in the stores.
Because when we decided to "save money" by sending our jobs overseas, and some smart people pointed out that it made us dependent on a long supply chain that could snafu beyond our control, ( see military history ) when that warning was made, the companies which wanted much lower wages so they could have higher profits ignored the warnings.

So here we are....
October 27, 2021

Those of you who liked the thread on shipping/ports/blockages may like this:



Two things:

I get a newsletter from Bloomberg on "supply lines" information. Always good stuff.

Today's letter sez:

Southern California’s ports are vowing to get tougher with the owners of containers languishing on port property, one of a series of steps announced this week to clear the U.S.’s clogged trade arteries.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach this week announced they will levy a surcharge on ocean carriers with containers overstaying their welcome. Starting Nov. 1, boxes waiting nine days or longer for truck transport would incur the fee, as would containers waiting three or more days by rail. The surcharge will start at $100 per container and increase in $100 increments each day.
Ocean carriers and trucking companies have each blamed the other for the lion’s share of the container build-up over the past few months. During that period, the backlog has grown.


the rest of article:
tinyurl.com/2y5hpecw

Also, here is where you can sign up for the news letter, it's free and no spam.

https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/supply-lines

they have one of global economy, also:
https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/new-economy-daily
October 25, 2021

Found a good thread re: how/why we are seeing so many shortages


Shipping is a linear system, bottlenecks bring it to a halt, then the halt radiates up and down the line.

this twitter thread by a shipping guy lays out the specific problems in a neat way, and details a system most of us don't see.
very glad I read it.

https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1451543776992845834
October 22, 2021

Congress Staffer Charged With 10 Felonies Related To Possession Of Child Pornography



A staffer at the US House of Representatives was arrested Wednesday and charged with possession of child pornography. Fairfax Country police said, Stefan Bieret, 41, who works as an assistant to the US House of Representative Sergeant-at-Arms, is facing 10 felonies and allegedly owns a DropBox account containing images of child sexual abuse material.

According to Fox News, Bieret, who lives in Burke, Virginia, became the subject of an investigation when the National Center for the Missing and Exploited Children was alerted about a potentially illicit image that was uploaded to the alleged DropBox account. Authorities from the task force on internet crimes against children took action on the report and tracked the owner of the account to a resident in Fairfax County.


https://www.latintimes.com/congress-staffer-charged-10-felonies-related-possession-child-pornography-490762
October 3, 2021

Wanna know who the people are in the Pandora Papers?


easy peasy...the creators of the Pandora Papers ( same ones who put out the Panama and the Paradise papers, have all the names and all the money stashes on their website, here:

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/power-players/


Sure explains why nothing never gets better........
September 17, 2021

Burning question about airplane passengers who create a brouhaha over not masking:


Their motivation, actually.

Do they mask when coming into the airport, checking luggage, sitting in waiting area, getting the boarding pass, and, most importantly, entering and sitting on the plane?

Surely they know they have to mask for some, if not all, the preflight stuff. And they know if the flight requires them.

So what is the point of starting a fight in the seating area? Haven't they watched the news and seen the consequences of previous rule breaking passengers??

I don't get it.


Profile Information

Gender: Female
Hometown: Washington state, for half my life
Home country: USA
Current location: SW Alabama. for the rest of my life
Member since: Wed Feb 27, 2008, 02:09 PM
Number of posts: 60,010

About dixiegrrrrl

Long time political activist, working to tint my lil "Mayberry" more blue. Collector of strays of various species and minds.
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