Quick Jots: April 2023

BRICS nations to develop their own currency
#economics
While Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa's economies aren't exactly the strongest or the most stable, even if Saudi oil joins, a move away from the US currency is nevertheless worrisome. Not because those countries are formidable, but because the US currency is in such a tenuous shape. With all of the monetary expansion in the past few decades, the only thing really keeping this whole thing afloat is the large and widescale adoption of the currency, creating a large base of goods it controls. If that base suddenly starts to drop, inflation will ramp up without printing one single additional dollar. But there are so many goods currently controlled by the USD that it's not clear whether this would put a terribly large dent in things.

Fauci backpedaling
#covid19 #anthonyfauci
After enjoying the spotlight for a few years for being the foremost "expert" on COVID, he has now backtracked somewhat, throwing his hands up and saying don't blame me! He claims he never shut down any schools, rather only issued guidance and that others needed to make the economic calculation. Well, yes. That was the point of the people he was demonizing this whole time. That also doesn't forgive his push to shut down...you know...the economy which the politicians were all too eager to comply with. But only the non-essential services! But as Fauci admitted just now, he's not an economist. And so he couldn't have known what was essential and what wasn't. Maybe he should have read I, Pencil. Suppose that I was the highest-paid architect and held the top seat as the most important architecture advisor in the country. The country needed to build an emergency building and I recommended a 60-story building built out of stick construction, that typically maxes out, structurally, at 5 stories. I create plans and everything, submitting them to the contractors. To any structural engineer or architect that objected I called a lunatic and conspiracy theorist. Then the 60-story building inevitably crashes and burns following the first windstorm created by someone sneezing on it. Then I stare at the smoldering wreckage and I say, "Well, show me a single structural member that I put in place. I never built the thing. All I can do is recommend based on a purely architectural perspective. I'm not a structural engineer." I would, rightly, be in jail. All I ask for is equal treatment.

France raises retirement age
#economics #france
As screwed as the United States is on social security, France is way worse off. President Macron raised the retirement age eligible for benefits from 62 all the way to...64. Because, well, they can't afford to keep things going the way they were. France responded by burning the country down. With all the broken windows, their economy is sure to rocket.

Fox News pays OMG to Dominion Voting Systems
#media
Fox News has agreed to pay a whopping $787.5 million in a settlement to Dominion Voting Systems related to allegedly false information propagated about it. It's tough to figure out how they were harmed by that amount, given that very few in the political establishment (their client base...their only client base) were swayed by this and that their annual revenue was only $100 million. I don't think I wrote a single thing on this kerfuffle because quite frankly, I don't care about it. Was the news real? Fake? Just due to it being from a cable news company, the probability leans towards fake. But what a number. Note to self: invest in the next company that is getting reamed by Fox News.

Tucker Carlson out
#media
Tucker Carlson's termination from Fox News was a surprise to pretty much everyone. It was done in the wake of the Fox News-Dominion settlement, but Carlson simply wasn't the obvious choice for the chopping block. As the left pops the champagne, I doubt this really reduces Carlson's reach by that much. He was the top-rated news show for a reason and he can easily attract a large following going independent. I didn't watch him outside a few clips, but from what I understand, Carlson was one of the few interesting people on cable news. He was one of the few that talked about things nobody else talked about, particularly anti-establishment sentiments, within the pro-establishment monoculture of the legacy media. It's easy to find better people than him in the alternative media, but for those stuck in the legacy media environment, it's a huge loss.

Don Lemon out
#media
Don Lemon's termination from CNN was a surprise to...only Don Lemon and his sycophants. In CNN's push to try to regain its seat as a respectable news outlet, they have been slowly firing those that have obvious biases and have been known for straight-up lying to its audiences. Brian Stelter was fired early as simply an obvious choice. Don Lemon is just another obvious choice. I'm not sure what Lemon is going to do after this. He certainly doesn't have the following Carlson does. He's just a rather low-IQ version of what most other anchors are regurgitating. 

Beer culture wars: Bud Light?
#lgbt
The geniuses over at Anheuser Busch decided to put an image of a trans person on a can of Bud Light. I can just see a bunch of blue-collar workers wearing flannel and a trucker's hat after pulling a long shift sitting down in a bar in rural Alamaba and getting that can put under their noses. The Anheuser Busch response was just as stupid, regurgitating a bunch of conservative focus group catchphrases. Now both the progressive left and the conservative right hate Anheuser Busch. I never would have thought the one thing that would unite both sides is shitty beer. I've been boycotting Budweiser since the dawn of time. Glad they could join me.

SF Whole Foods closes
#sanfrancisco
A year and change ago, Whole Foods opened up in the Tenderloin district for...who knows why. Has anyone from Whole Foods ever walked around the area? This is not your clientele. This is the sweaty armpit of San Francisco, which is saying something. The only reason to ever go there is that the theater district also happens to be there, where you get in, watch your show, and GTFO. Or if you need to stop by city hall for some unfortunate reasons, which is where the professional thieves are. Nevertheless, the street thieves hit the Whole Foods store and hit them hard. There were 568 emergency calls over 13 months of business! That's an average of almost one and a half emergency calls per day. 

The crashing San Francisco commercial real estate market
#sanfrancisco
As COVID policy continues to wreak havoc and tech companies laying off people and stubbornly embracing the work-from-home culture, there is a firesale on office buildings in San Francisco. The Union Bank Building on California Street was valued at $300 million pre-pandemic and is looking to sell at $60 million soon, an 80% nosedive. Nearby, the Wells Fargo building was being offered at $160 million in 2022, but they held off on executing a sale, citing lowball offers. Now it's back on the market and the estimated sale price is $35 million. This is better than Black Friday deals. Who wouldn't want to buy office space in a sadly declining once-great city? I'm sure I have $35 million between my couch cushions somewhere. Or did I spend that on buying Blockbuster franchises in 2013?