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What's the Beef?

On December 10th the White House issued a statement Recent Data Show Dominant Meat Processing Companies Are Taking Advantage of Market Power to Raise Prices and Grow Profit Margins.  “It raises a concern about pandemic profiteering, about companies that are driving price increases in a way that hurts consumers who are going to the grocery store,” White House National Economic Director Brian Deese said at a news briefing.  Needless to say, the Beef Industry, notably Tyson Foods, were not happy with the White House statement. This piqued my interest as I had noticed substantial price increases in prime cuts of beef and veal during my regular visits to the butcher.  Were prices rapidly rising due to inflation driven increased costs of sales?  Was increased demand driving prices, As we learned in Econ 101? Or were meat processing companies following the old adage “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” I decided to look at the big four meat firms, the middlemen between consumers and farmers
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The Benefits of Retirement: The Return of the Book

  2021 Reading and Listening List When I retired at the end of 2020, one personal commitment was to get back to reading. Over the last several years as job demands became a 7-day/week burden, the joy of reading took a backseat. With a sudden windfall of free time at hand my hardcover, e-book, and audio book vociferous appetite and consumption returned. Why hardcover? In the case of military history, I study the maps depicting battles and I find the need to constantly reference the graphic description of the operations as the author describes the battle in detail. Audiobooks were a new experience and provided entertainment and education during daily walks and long drives. This year’s titles were dominated by nonfiction as I found myself reading and listening to multiple titles simultaneously. In the case of An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography and Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad these were chosen ahead of our visit to Rwanda to give me add
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How do you heal when you can't agree on facts?

  On January 6 th , 2021, the new Day of Infamy, I listened to Republican after Republican beseech their congressional colleagues to not accept the Electoral College Results due to unproven allegations in several states. Not surprisingly the three states that were to be challenged: Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia were all won by President-Elect Biden (not surprisingly GOP House members from these states had no problem with their elections, just the presidential choice).   The 147 Republicans were only halted in their grandstanding when the Capitol security was breeched and the building occupied by terrorists. Since the election of November 3 rd , the Trump team filed 62 lawsuits with only a single victory, Pennsylvania requiring voters to provide ID to cure a defective ballot.   Team Trump tried, often comically, to convert accusations into proof.   From its ominous launch at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, this effort was clear to anyone with a smidgen of sense to be nothing more
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How Big is Biden's Victory?

Almost three weeks after election day, President-elect Biden's popular vote lead over President Trump is ~6,000,000 votes.  To put that in perspective, that gap is nearly equivalent to ALL of the votes cast in the following seven states captured by Trump: Oklahoma (1.5M) South Dakota (0.3M) North Dakota (0.3M) Alaska (0.3M) Utah (1.4M) Nebraska (0.9M) Kansas (1.3M)   The above states also total 33 electoral votes.   Now this is an academic exercise, but the margin of victory in votes, states, and electoral votes is significant.   It is a landslide, plain and simple.   Trump’s defenders like to point to his 74Million vote tally as unprecedented for an incumbent.   Yes, it is true, but coming in second in a two-person race is still coming in last.   At the end of the day, the race was not nearly as close as 2016 when Trump claimed a landslide.
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The Last Eight Days

You are not imagining this, I have actually returned.  Why, you ask?  We'll save that for a future post.  Like just about about every other American of voting age, nothing else seems to matter except the current election.  I no longer yell at the TV watching the NFL, but last week's presidential debate resulted in closing the windows on a warm October night else the neighbors get alarmed.  There's much at stake this year, and while I am not a man prone to hyperbole, I do believe America is steering into the abyss.  Depending on the outcome, we very well face generational impacts to the American Ideal.   I have spent many hours trying to understand what makes someone support Trump.  Is it financial?  Is it populism?  Is it the rhetoric?  Is it nativism?  Is it anti-globalism?  Is it the bravado?  Is it the Apprentice?  I believe it is a mix of all of the above driven by two emotions:  Fear and Greed.   1) Biden will raise our taxes.  Hate to rain on your parade, but under th
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Reflections, Obervations, and Analysis From Israeli Elections

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  I am political junkie and with the exception of the constant barrage of negative ad campaigns, I love the election process.   The polling, the analysis, the strategy; it’s great theater and drama.   This week, I was able to experience an Israeli Parliamentary election for the first time, and if you think American elections have drama and political gamesmanship, it can pale in comparison to the Israeli version with its 10 or so competitive parties.   And while there was great disappointment in the Israeli left, likewise on the U.S. left, the drama created from a “too close to call” on election night to a comfortable win by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party the next morning offered flashbacks to US Presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.   It was a frantic and frenetic final 72 hours indeed. But first a little background on Israel and parliamentary elections.   Unlike in the U.S., where the electorate directly chooses the executive and legislative representatives from two major
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Diggaprediction: Enjoy The Debates

  It’s that time of the year when the prognosticators start sharing their 2015 predictions with the rest of us mere mortals.   Yes the omnipotent and omnipresent soothsayers with unprecedented data at their disposal will make political, economic, sports, entertainment, geopolitical, and even weather predictions.   Some will go bold like a 30% correction in the stock market, some will play it safe saying the San Francisco Giants will contend, some will go specific “Jeb Bush will be the front runner at the end of the year”, and some will go vague “President Obama and Congress will disagree.” So here we go with the Diggapredictions for the insane, unstable, and those generally in need of help: Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN will focus solely on ratings at the expense of quality news coverage.   In the run up to the 2016 presidential election these networks will reach new heights of polarized political prose like cheerleaders.   The love triangle between Joe Scarborough, Chris Chri
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