Storm the Field

1. You're tacking on additional shit I didn't say. I didn't say "great" or "never been better" 2. The Fed tracks this data every year in its annual Economic Well-Being Surveys. Most recent data was from 2022, when 73% of respondents said their personal financial situation was "okay", "good", or "great". That's down from 78% in 2021, but in line with the average of 74% since 2017. (By comparison that number was below 70% for the the entire period between 2012-16). Digging through the data, most of the decline came from lower income folks with a HS diploma or less. College Grads were at 88%, near all-time highs. The big "wow" is that 50% of respondents rated the national economy as "good or excellent" in 2019. That dropped to 26% in 2020, and all the way down to 18% in 2022. I don't see any way of interpreting the data other than that people's assessment of their personal financial situation has not changed all that much in the past 4 years, while their assessment of the national economy has fallen off a cliff. People by and large think they're doing at least OK, but that the country as a whole is worse off than even 2007. 3. Not to be a dick, but it's pretty apparent from this thread you're inclined to discount any economic data that doesn't vibe with your ongoing personal experience of "it sucks to be in the mortgage business in 2023." I try not to do the opposite and ignore negative data because I work in O&G.

The majority of poll respondents indicate that their personal financial situation is good and that their local economy is doing well, but they think the national economy is the worst in history.

Lol, a Mises Caucus nut that frequently retweets Ian Miles Chong. Just what this thread needs.

Encouraging re: inflation

Just a little over 60 hours until feeders go off on Opening Day of rifle season. I'm already struggling to focus at work. Planning to duck out from work early Friday afternoon to get to my place with at least an hour or two of sunlight left. Wanna check and make sure nothing's gone wrong with feeders in the past 2 weeks and put a chair in my new stand. Not something I want to be making a bunch of noise trying to do in the dark Saturday morning.

Realized I haven't posted in this thread since Memorial Day. Have kept up a pretty strict workout schedule. Minimum 4 days a week and I usually aim for 5 and sometimes even go 6 if I'm able to make it on Saturday mornings. Haven't weighed myself in months, but feels like I'm probably still plateaued somewhere in the 190-195 range. That said, I keep improving my muscle to fat ratios and steadily lifting heavier and heavier weights. By far the strongest I've been in 15+ years, maybe ever. Gonna keep up with the current regimen through New Years, as there's just too much going on this time of year to try and really "get in shape." Gonna do Dry January as usual, and toying with the idea of keeping it going until I turn 40 in early March. I think that would really help me drop those final 10 lbs that I can't seem to shed. We'll see how it goes.

The outer ring of the front has finally made it to Houston proper. Got a little bit of rain and it dropped from about 85 at 5:30 to 70 right now. Gonna fall a couple degrees every hour from now until noon tomorrow, bottoming out around 45.

86 with 60% humidity, feels like 92 in 77018. Hurry up already!

Still swampy AF in Houston. Looks like the front won't make it to our neck of the woods until around 7:00 this evening, so it appears we'll get one more afternoon with a heat index in the low 90's. Not gonna make it below 60 until around midnight, so unless you're a Sunday Night Owl, won't experience much in the way of "cold" until getting up tomorrow morning. So over this revival of Late Summer weather we've had since last Friday. Went out to the RenFest yesterday and that was easily the hottest, muggiest trip I've ever taken out there. Even in just shorts and a t-shirt I was thoroughly sweaty. Saw several people that looked like they were on the verge of keeling over. Can't imagine wearing a big heavy costume all day out in those conditions.

I'm on Marketwatch every day, solely b/c I find their stock and commodities tickers user friendly. The articles on the site itself are 90% clickbait trash. Every single day: "Why this hedge fund titan predicts a coming Ice Age for stocks" "He made a fortune during the 2008 crash, why he's now saying to prepare for financial Armageddon" They even have a daily "Am I the asshole?" type column where people ask shit like "I'm about to inherit $5M from my father. My lazy POS brother doesn't get anything. He thinks I should pay for the funeral costs. I think we should split 50/50. Is that fair?"

FIrst Atlanta Fed GDPNow estimate for Q4 is 2.7%. Goldman's initial estimate is 1.6%. For Q3, GDPNow started off at 3.5% and eventually settled at 5.4%, while JPM, Goldman, etc.. were all initially ~0.5%. They slowly converged upwards towards GDPNow over the ensuing months.

Projected wind chill at noon on Monday.

Apparently we've got gypsies in Garden Oaks. Saw a post on FB today of some Roma ladies stealing shit from a clothing store on 34th.

Strong cold front still on track for arrival sometime between Sunday evening (CenTex) to early Monday morning (Houston). Until then, a late Summer-esque weekend of mid-80's, copious humidity, and mosquitoes. Looks like around 10 pm Sunday, it will feel like high 30's in Austin but still high 70's here in Houston. We'll wake up to weather that feels 30 degrees colder than when we went to sleep. Tempted to hop in the pool one last time in 2023 for shits and giggles on Sunday afternoon. Water temp was 78 when I looked yesterday, which is pretty brisk, but not unbearable by any means. Front looks like it will last right around 4 days, including a very chilly Halloween. Should revert back to "typical early November" temps of ~75/60 by next weekend.

All is Doomed! Imminent recession! Cooked Numbers! House of Cards! Buy Gold and Ammo!

Weather forecast currently looking pretty solid for Opening Day. 73/52 and sunny at my place in ETX. A touch warmer than I'd like, but not too shabby. Last year, on the one day I got to hunt, when I was still just a guest on this lease, it was about 80, so foggy you could barely see the feeder, and mosquitoes were all over the place. First real cold front rolled through the next day. Got 2 feeders up an running this past Sunday, so I'm hoping that ~3 weeks of reliable feeding will have been long enough to get some regular diners showing up. Brother heading out Sunday to fill some more corn and check and make sure hogs haven't wreaked havoc on the work Dad and I accomplished this past weekend. Definitely won't be surprised if there's not much action next weekend, but I'm just really excited to be hitting Opening Weekend at my own lease, hunting my own stand and feeder for the first time in my life.

Official release this morning was 4.9%. JPM was pretty close with their final prediction of 4.7% yesterday. Markets unhappy of course.

One thing I learned at Game 6 on Sunday: The Butcher stall in Sec. 224 is one of the best dining values in the stadium. 2 meat plate with 2 sides was only something like $27 and actually pretty damn decent BBQ for being at a concession stand. Generous serving of brisket and half a chicken, roasted brussels sprout/potato mix and mac and cheese was more than enough food for wife and I to split.

If I'm reading this right, at 10 PM Sunday night, the "feels like" will be 37 in Austin but 78 in Houston. https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sfctapp-imp&rh=2023102412&fh=135&r=conus

Utterly Irrelevant in a post detailing why the season was frustrating to watch.

Had some time to collect my thoughts and get the mourning out of the way. Despite once again making it to the ALCS, this season just wasn't all that much "fun", IMO. 1. 90 wins is far less than we've gotten use to since the dynasty run started. We were in 1st for just 19 days this entire season. Spent 90% of the year chasing. 2. The awful home record. I looked back at the schedule and the Astros won just 5 of the 15 games I attended at MMP. It got noticeably worse in September and October. 3. Lack of clutch factor. We went 1-8 in extra innings and were under .500 in 1-run games. I don't know how many times we went into the 9th down by 1 or 2, put multiple runners on with less than 2 outs, and scored 0. We only had 4 walk-offs all year long. 4. Fucking injuries. Had to do without Altuve for 45% of the season and Alvarez for 30%. Lost 2/5 of our starting rotation in a 24-hour period. 5. Dusty's hardheaded nonsense and too many AB's taking by scrubs. Apart from his jackass refusal to play Diaz for no justifiable reason or hating Chas, nothing pissed me off more this year than when Dusty would make some incomprehensible decision based on a hunch or dream he had and then try and explain it with some made-up statistic. You'd look it up and he'd have the numbers ass backwards. Like he'd pinch hit somebody "I feel like he had a better chance against (insert lefty pitcher)" and the numbers would be 2-12 lifetime with 8 k's vs that pitcher and a career 0.458 OPS against LHP. Corey Julks got 323 plate appearances and put up 0.3 WAR. Hensley got 93 for -0.7. Kessinger, Madris, and Singleton got another 150 and were worth -0.8. That's 550+ PA accounting for -1.2 WAR.

157 days until we take on Yankees on Opening Day. I'm done thinking about baseball until Spring Training is a few weeks out. Doubt I'll watch more than a few innings (if any) of the World Series. Don't really give shit when Astros aren't playing. Only thing I care about between now and then is not hearing that we've offered Dusty a chance to come back for another shot in 2024.

Good lord, Crane should personally issue refunds. That's genuinely hard to believe.

Holy shit, not a single crooked number. Anyone got a tally of LOB during those 36 innings? Gotta be at least 25, right?

Dusty needs to retire. If he insists on continuing to manage at 75, let some rebuilding or not-even-trying team have him take the reins. I want somebody born after the dawn of color TV filling out lineup cards for the Astros. Maldy needs to retire. Not a team on earth that needs a 37-year old 0.2 WAR catcher with .190 average and the mobility of an arthritic sloth. Brantley needs to retire. Love ya, Uncle Mike, but he'll turn 37 early next season and is washed. Also, pretty clear Meyers is not going to take up a major step forward and be an everyday starter for us. Dubon is a quality bench guy, but that's it. Sign/trade a legit starting OF. Garcia won't be back for a long while. You can't count on LMJ being ready or staying healthy next year. France overperformed and is probably not a legit MLB starter. Brown is a work in progress. We need 1-2 more real starters in the rotation. Hope and pray that Pena can recover from this horrendous power slump and that Tucker's abysmal post-season was a fluke. Wrap Altuve and Alvarez in protective bubble wrap until Opening Day.