Tag: Stupid people

Where’s The Beef?

Gummint

Following on from my previous post about the inadvisability of importing furrin (Argy) beef, allow me to point out the following things.

First:

Mo-Kan Livestock owner Jim Hertzog told the lawmaker that another issue involves small cattle herds.

“We’re short on numbers. It’s just that simple, and the reason we’re short on numbers is three years of drought, and a lot of cows were sold and slaughtered, and they’re not there to raise the calves,” Hertzog said.

He added that the solution is to “rebuild the herd. The solution is not to bring in other beef.”

And as for those steep beef prices at the supermarket:

Restaurant owner Sherry Keegan blamed large packing houses. “It’s the big four, big five packing houses. They tend to manipulate the pricing by shortening their kill days,” she said.

Keegan explained that “rather than killing five days a week, having a five-day-a-week slaughter schedule, they’ll reduce it down to three days and the price of beef, price of meat will go up.”

The second may also be a result of the first, however (although Big Meat have never been known for their lack of greed and cupidity).  Another reason for their slaughter slowdown could be a shortage of illegal alien workers in the packing plants…

Anyway, next up:

Matt Pearce, owner of Pearce Cattle Company, and Steve Lucie, a fifth-generation rancher, appeared on Newsmax’s “National Report” to discuss the increase of beef imports from Argentina aimed at driving down food costs in the U.S.

Pearce warned that importing foreign beef could expose U.S. herds to dangerous diseases and undermine domestic producers already struggling with high costs.

And finally:

The USDA said the national cattle herd is at a 75-year low, while consumer demand for beef has grown 9% over the past decade.

Because it takes time to rebuild herds, the department said it is investing to stabilize markets for ranchers over the long term and to make beef more affordable.

Ah yes… government stepping in to help solve a problem that they created in the first place.

The plan calls for the Agriculture and Interior departments to “streamline and expand” ranchers’ abilities to graze on federal lands.  It will prioritize grazing on an estimated 24 million acres of vacant allotments across the country.

By the way, the reason that ranching permits were reduced came courtesy of the AgDept during the FuckJoeBiden administration, because it was all part of the drive to make consumers start eating insects instead of beef, or to cut back the effect of cow flatulence on the environment, or some other crap. #BigGreenStupidity

Read all three linked articles to get a full flavor of the complexity of the issue.

There is so much bullshit [sic]  involved in this whole business that I’m starting to favor a simple solution to this Gordian Knot:

Feel free to suggest who or what should be at the naughty end of this gun barrel.

When The Market Bites Back

Corporate Fuckery, Management, Marketing / Advertising

Probably one of the first golden rules of business is “Never anger your existing customers, and never ignore those customers in chasing after new customers”.

I seem to bang on about this endlessly, but I’m always reminded of just how stupid management can be in ignoring that rule.

Now add on an unbelievably-stupid rationale for changing a company’s product line, and…

Wait.

There’s a much better way to look at this foolishness.

First, I invite you to watch Richard Hammond talking about some new Porsche he test drives at the old Top Gear track.  Because if you watch his glee and excitement, then this little video about Porsche’s idiocy becomes all the more understandable.  (Note especially the effect of Porsche’s marketing decisions on their share price and earnings.)

Nice one, dickheads.

Schumer Shutdown FAFO Update

Politics, Trumpism

Well they started it, so what did they think would happen?  How about this:

White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought on Friday announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is halting $11 billion in federal funding for projects in four states amid the government shutdown.

And the four states thus targeted?

New York will face the biggest bulk of funding cuts with its projects in New York City, but cities in California, Massachusetts and Maryland will also see reductions because of the shutdown.

My reaction:

Of course, they’re upset about this:

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Soc-  NY  OH) warned the pause will devastate American families.

“Cutting $11 Billion in Corps projects will devastate communities across America & drive up costs for working families. Infrastructure investment keeps ports competitive, protects homes from flooding, & supports good-paying jobs. Infrastructure investment keeps ports competitive, protects homes from flooding, and supports good-paying jobs.”

Hey Marcy, your constituents and those from the other four Left-wing states voted you and your little socialist buddies into office, and now they get to face the consequences of your actions.  Suck on it, Lefties.

As for the rest of us:

Correction:  Alert Reader Jon M. informs me that said Kaptur reptile is in fact from Ohio — in the ninth district, a little bluebottle in the tomato soup that includes the garden spot of Toledo.  My apologies both to her and to the state of New York.

Breaking Down The “Decline”

Business

Here’s an interesting take:

We’ve all seen the nonstop headlines claiming “Las Vegas is in Freefall” “Vegas is Dying” and “Vegas is Finished and Will Never Recover.”

All of which is a gross exaggeration.

First of all, Vegas is plenty busy- just like always. Just a little less busy than last year. Revenues are down single digits from last year- which was one of greatest years in the history of Vegas.

Well, to accountant types, all growth must continue and in fact increase, regardless of circumstance.  Which is a decent reason to beat accountants to death with clubs.

But compared to last year (the best year in history) business is down this year, and Vegas casinos are laying off employees. That part is true.

So, what exactly is happening? Why is business down this year? The mainstream media would never understand this, but this is another classic case of Republican success versus Democrat failure.

Not all of Vegas is down. Only the Vegas Strip is down. The off-Strip and suburban casinos and hotels in Vegas are booming. Why? What’s the difference?

The reason why is simple. All the major resorts on the world-famous Vegas Strip are owned and operated by Democrats — mostly Ivy League-educated Democrats from Wall Street, who know nothing about gambling or tourism.

And here’s the good part:

MGM is run by Democrats. Caesars is run by Democrats. Harrahs is run by Democrats. Wynn is run by Democrats (since they ran brilliant Republican billionaire Steve Wynn out of town). Even Venetian sold out to Apollo Global Management based in New York, since the death of brilliant Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Not only are the Strip casinos run by dumb, clueless Ivy League Democrats, but most of them sold the land under their casino-resorts to Blackstone- Wall Street firm that now charges them obscene annual $100 million to $300 million land lease charges.

But the off-Strip casinos and resorts are almost all owned and operated by Republicans.

Station Casinos is booming- the Republican Fertitta family owns them.  The downtown Golden Nugget is booming- it is owned and operated by Tillman Fertitta- a Trump Republican who is now President Trump’s Ambassador to Italy.  Boyd Casinos are booming. They are run by the Boyd family- who gives mostly to Republican candidates and PACS.  South Point Casino is booming- it is run by the Republican Trump supporter Michael Gaughan.

And the details:

The Vegas Strip resorts run by dumb, clueless Democrats from New York are all charging rip-off rates.  Parking your car is now $50 at any Strip hotel.  Two martinis cost $80.  A nice meal costs $500.  Resort fees will run you up to $100 extra a day on top of room charges.  At MGM properties a bottle of water in your minibar might cost you $25.  And here’s the craziest rip-off of all:  MGM (run by a bunch of dumb Democrats) now charges $25 extra for room service if you want knives, forks and napkins.

Putting Manhattan cost structures into a Western desert town.

On the other hand, at any of these off-Strip and suburban resorts owned and run by Republicans, the parking is free, the meals are reasonable, the room rates are inexpensive, and they have movie theatres, bowling alleys, food courts and babysitting. Anyone can afford a fun night out on the town! It’s still like “old Vegas.”

I have to stipulate at this point that I cannot stand Las Vegas:  Strip, off-Strip, suburban, whatever.  Every time I go there — once because I’d never been there before, the other times on business or to attend a conference — I couldn’t wait to leave, couldn’t wait to get on the plane, get in the car, whatever.  Nothing about the place attracts me, and just about everything in the place repels me.  In my own parlance:  I’d rather watch an F1 Grand Prix race at Spa Francorchamps, in the chilly rain, than the one in Las Vegas.

But as a case study in how to screw up a good thing, modern-day Vegas is surely an excellent example.  As Wayne Root memorably puts it:

Personally, I preferred the Mafia. They knew how to treat customers.

Stolen This, Taken That, Expropriated Another

Geography, History, Lies and Untruths

I’m getting heartily sick of all the bullshit surrounding this whole “stolen land” concept.  I was reminded of this while watching some Australian TV show (out of the corner of my eye:  New Wife was doing the actual watching) where the opening credits revealed that the show’s cast and producers were aware that the show was being filmed on lands that were originally the home of some unpronounceably-named tribe of Aborigines, and wanted everyone to know how they respected that “heritage”.

Given that Australia’s aborigines are amongst the most “unsettled” populations on the planet — they are nomadic to an extent almost impossible to describe — that struck me as a little rich.  Most of all, what got my goat was the tone of the statement:  semi-apologetic, cringing and guilty are the words that come to mind.

We have the same bollocks much in evidence Over Here.  The history of this entire world is a story of migration, settlement, wars over territory and Tribe A taking land from Tribe B — bloody hell, they’re still fighting the same wars in the Balkans — but it’s only recently that the arguments over who owns what have become a third-party issue rather than something that the involved parties settle between themselves.  Or, to put it in a more scholarly fashion:

Every person alive on this planet today has ancestors who were displaced by force somewhere in their lineage. Every person alive on this planet today has ancestors who displaced other people by force somewhere in their lineage. It’s an inevitable fact of human history. American natives fought with each other over land and resources, and some tribes, like the Dakota (Sioux), were notorious for attacking their neighbors. Europe’s history is rife with such, from the Vikings to the Norman invasion of Britain. In fact, few if any of the people of Europe today are the original inhabitants of the land they reside on now; the one exception may be the Basque of the Pyrenees Mountains, but even they, at some point, came there from somewhere else. The French people we know now derive their name from the Franks, a Germanic tribe, and as for the British Isles, that motley group of islands has seen so many invasions, from Picts to Celts to Romans, Saxons, Anglians, Jutes, and Normans, that it would be difficult to keep track as they go by.

Here’s the simple response to all the handwringing and aggrievement over the “stolen land” claims:  get over it, because you’re never going to get it back.  End of story.

And to a lesser extent, the same is true of “cultural appropriation”:  where White kids are somehow forbidden to wear their hair in those disgusting dreadlocks because Africans somehow have “ownership” of a hairstyle.  What bullshit.  It’s like saying that Black people can’t drink Scotch whisky because whisky is traditionally a product of the northern provinces of (lily-white) Britain, or that the Irish can’t eat chips because potatoes originally came from America.

Everyone borrows cultural artifacts and customs from everyone else.  That’s been the habit of mankind for millennia, and no cries of outrage can overturn it.

When it comes to land, the stronger group has taken it from its “original” (and sometimes not-so original) weaker inhabitants.  That this activity has become somewhat less egregious and bloody in recent times does not gainsay its basic premise — and where it has become more bloody, the weaker continue to learn its hard history — as the “Palestinians” are (re-)learning in their efforts to eradicate the state of Israel.  (They’re unlikely ever to give up, which simply means that Israel will be forced to teach them the same lesson again and again, ad infinitum.  As I’ve said many times before, the Arabs are lucky that the Jews have an inexplicable aversion to genocide, or else “from the river to the sea” could easily have changed to “from the Golan to the Suez”.  Vae victis  — a Latin expression — has particular currency here.)

So enough with the kowtowing (a Chinese expression) to the Perpetually Aggrieved.  Fuck off, all of you, and make the best of what you’ve got.  Heaven knows, most of what you can achieve comes courtesy of Western civilization.

You’re welcome.