Snake Diggity

McMullin has the same odds as Beto, lol.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/utah-senate-hopeful-evan-mcmullin-is-striving-to-make-a-gop-state-competitive-again-11658584801 Utah is odd because they are deeply conservative but they do not seem to like Trumpism. I wouldn’t put money on McMullin but this race might actually be competitive.

Resetting where we project on the position player side, post-draft: Catchers (6): Galvan, Guillemette, Powell, Schuessler, Constantine, Hoffart Infielders (7): Daly, Thomas, Flores, O’Dowd, Carlson, Duplantier, O’Hara Outfielders (4): Campbell, Kennedy, Belyeu, Whitehead Isn’t obvious who will play 3B, and they look like they could use another OF, especially if Kennedy doesnt come back. But if Kennedy comes back the lineup looks like it’ll be plenty deep, even if it lacks the star power of this year’s lineup.

Verlander is so goddam good.

I believe they also have an infielder who committed late after switching from Tech, the name escapes me. I am a believer in Harrison as a Sunday starter to go with Gordon and Hurley, so I agree there’s less concern on the pitching side, especially if they are confident Witt can have a meaningful role in the last 2 months of the season. They need at least one premier bat from the portal, ideally an OF. That becomes less of an issue if Kennedy comes back but I would still think they’d like to add a bat even with EK.

Kennedy didn’t even get drafted. I understand he’s graduated and already 23, but it sure seems like coming back would be the smart play. Finish a grad degree, make a little NIL money, potentially win a CWS, potentially play your way into the top 10 rounds of the next draft, vs signing as an UDFA (where the team has almost nothing invested) or going to play independent ball. Adding Flores, Thomas, and Kennedy to the guys they already were counting on makes this lineup plenty good to make the postseason; likely not as good as this year but still plenty good.

I think it is pretty clear that food and gas are the 2 spots pretty much everybody is seeing inflation most prominently. It’s $40 for us to order pizza delivered when it used to be $25. Same for driving thru at Chic Fil A. A trip to HEB is $200-$300 when it used to be $150-$200. I don’t know the stats on how much of the overall inflation number food/fuel account for, but I do think those 2 items are very much impacted by the war in Ukraine, and that a breakthrough over there would significantly impact their prices, although I think a big % of restaurant prices are related to worker shortages.

With the NIL factor I would hope that it would make sense for any player not drafted in the top 10 rounds to come back. I would think at least Kennedy would be back. So Thomas, Daly, Flores, and O’Dowd on the infield and Kennedy, Campbell, and Whitehead in the outfield, with the USC transfer at catcher. Probably need at least one really good transfer bat.

Bluey rules. Reminds us so much of our own family (we have 2 girls that were 5 and 2 when we started watching). Daniel Tiger is a better show in terms of what the kids get out of it, but Bluey is by far the most entertaining for the whole family. I try to mix in Creative Galaxy and Sid the Science Kid because I think the learning content is good. My girls are more into Lion Guard and T.O.T.S on Disney+. But Bluey is the one we all agree on.

Willson Contreras (can replace Castro as backup C and DH when Yordan able to play LF) Garrett Cooper (1B and LF) Trey Mancini (1B and LF)

If Trump doesn’t run I wonder if Rubio could jump in. He let himself get bullied by Trump and looked weak, but along with Haley I think he’s one of the strongest realistic candidates in the gop side. Just not sure if he could convince enough Trumpers to show up. I do believe in the rule that the only way a Democrat has a shot is if they can bring out black voters, while the only way a Republican can win is if they can draw enough of the maga crowd.

Based on the people who appear to be positioning themselves to run: Republicans: Trump is obviously the favorite until he doesn’t run. If he runs I think he will be likely to get the nomination because the rest of the field would eat themselves just like they did in 2016. DeSantis could be effective enough over the next 18 months to make Trump view him as a real threat which might make him decide not to run. I’d say there’s at least a 75% chance Trump or DeSantis will be the Republican nominee. My dark horse is Nikki Haley. She’s navigated the last 5 years to pretty much be the only experienced politician who has avoided Trump’s ire while not buying/selling the big lie. Chris Sununu and Larry Hogan have been rumored to want to run, and they would be the moderate choice if Trumpism dies (it won’t). Charlie Baker would be the best GOP candidate for president imho but I do not think he could win the nomination without selling his soul. Retreads like Romney and Christie have no shot. Abbott or Cheney or Pence…LoLz. Democrats: I still find it really really hard to imagine Biden not being the nominee if he’s alive and able to stand/speak at all. I still think Biden would have the best shot against Trump but I would bet against him to beat DeSantis or any of the other more moderate candidates. If Biden drops out or things get worse domestically to the point that it’s obvious he can’t win, Newsom is certainly a viable candidate and should be the heavy betting favorite. Whitmer should be in the mix. Mayor Pete might make a good president one day but he does not have a chance this cycle. Like Baker on the GOP side, Andy Beshear would be a good candidate. Sanders and Warren need to chill. Harris…lol. And of course there’s always the risk of a billionaire buying his/her way into the mix. DeSantis/Newsom would make for some good debates. If Trump wins the presidency, it’s the end of the world.

I feel like I covered part of the impact of shutdowns with “COVID supply chain impact”. I do think it’s warranted to add a separate “pent up demand from COVID lockdown” to cover the demand side. If I were parsing out the 9.1% by cause off the cuff with only cursory research it would look like: RUSSIA: 3% of the 9% can be traced back to Russia and the impact on oil prices (including the the impact of the Saudi reaction), food prices (Ukrainian wheat), and general supply pullback due to fear of geopolitical instability. COVID: 4% of the 9% can be traced to COVID; from pent up demand and overstimulus hitting the demand side to China lockdowns and domestic shutdowns/slowdowns impacting the supply side. This also includes the impact of labor shortages resulting from olds retiring early and women deciding to stay home; the olds part was going to happen eventually anyway but COVID expedited it. The FED: 1% of the 9% can be traced back to pre-COVID fiscal policy resulting in overstimulation. The remaining 1.1% could be left for other/misc. causes. Not to CR it up, but I think the blame on Biden should limited to the difference between 7% and 9%. We were going to have high inflation regardless of that last stimmy, it just made it slightly worse.

Resident “experts”: how much of the 9.1% number released today would you attribute to each of the potential causes? Overstimulus impact on demand (Trump and others; “pre-Biden”) Overstimulus impact on demand (Biden) COVID supply chain impact on supply (including China shutdowns) Russia/Ukraine O&G impact on supply Russia/Ukraine wheat impact on supply Russia/Ukraine geopolitical stability impact on supply Saudis, other non-Russian bad actors on oil prices Other causes (describe)

Why would you expect deflation then? Best I can guess the only way deflation would occur is if the Fed is overreacting, in which case they would very likely reverse course and go back to QE to address unemployment which would head off deflation. Deflation would only happen in the event that rates go way up, dramatically tempering demand, but somehow unemployment stays very low. Which I guess to your point, should be a good thing.

The mayor says he wants everyone held accountable then defends that fat fucking piece of shit cop who got “grazed” by saying “he went down that hall 3 times trying to get in that room”. FUCKING BULLSHIT. If that cowardly fat fuck had “tried” to get in that room, he would either be dead, or a national hero for having single handedly stopped the shooter. So fucking enraging. Fuck the mayor of Uvalde up his ass.

I expect them to go a full point. 9% ain’t nuttin ta fux wit.

Abbott for president talk might be the stupidest shit I’ve read. Between Uvalde and the power grid this motherfucker is a total laughingstock. He’d be resigning if this state wasn’t populated by a bunch of mouthbreathing fucking morons. Instead he’s gonna wax Beto by 9 points.

That video is horrifying. Those cops are to blame for every child that died after they arrived. Who knows the number but it’s enough that it would have been national news on its own. It is truly unbelievable that there were that many officers on site and none of them charged in. Unbelievable. Either way, it’s both. Those cops deserve everything coming their way. But it’s also the guns. That kid should have never been able to legally obtain those firearms.

I had kids in my mid-late 30s. To that point, I lived the experience of being childless. Of course it’s not the same as being childless in my 50s or 60s or later. But it’s a similar enough experience to give me a hell of a lot more insight into what not having kids is like vs the experiences a childless person has to reference against what it must be like to have kids. Note, my comment was only in response to another childless poster(s) making assertions about the merits/demerits of having kids.

It’s just an issue of balancing resources. As the population ages, a higher % of resources ends up allocated to the elderly. Elderly people can no longer work. The burden of responsibility to provide their needs falls to the younger working people. In a population with a sustained birth date >~2.3, there are plenty of young people such that providing for the elderly (whether it be funding social programs or directly caring for them) is no big deal. Once the rate gets <~1.7 that burden starts to be very very heavy.

Trump was an experiment for what happens when people lose their minds in the voting booth. But that means now everybody knows what happens. Walker makes Trump look like an actual stable genius. If Georgia votes this braindead motherfucker into the Senate..I mean, fuck…that happens, whatever shred of hope we have for our country is gone.

Just that the problem of elderly people not having enough young people to care for them is unique to aging populations. One mitigating factor is that in democracies those elderly people will have outsized voting influence. But that depends on the increasingly burdened young people staying cool about it. Korea specifically might not fac it until a little later than 2030, but any country with sustained birth rate <~1.7 will face the issue sooner or later. The wealthiest countries will be largely insulated from the problem because they can pull the immigration lever to backfill young people.

I think those countries down below 1.5 are gonna have big problems. I think 1.7-2.0 is a decline that can be managed by gains in technology (along with immigration) but beneath that you run into serious issues, especially in caring for the elderly. I wouldn’t want to be over 70 in China or S Korea anytime after about 2030.

Pffffft