Category Archives: Finances

In last days of Biden presidency, EPA gave $20B to NGOs with no oversight

This is nothing less than outrageous.

During the last days of the Biden administration, in the name of “climate justice,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave $20 BILLION of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to eight “entities” that would then distribute to NGOs and others at the entities’ discretion without transparency.

This scheme is the first of its kind in EPA history, and was purposely designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.

The EPA’s new administrator, Lee Zeldin, said: “Never in EPA history has anything like this ever happened. And there was a decision to park $20 billion of tax dollars at a ‘green’ bank just outside of government to lessen the amount of oversight that government has over the funds, to give it to eight different entities – not like $20 billion on 40,000 different entities; we’re talking about eight entities – and then those entities are distributing the funds. You’re getting further and further removed with less government accountability.”

Fortunately, the new team lat the EPA has found the $20 billion and will terminate the financial agreement with the bank and return the funds to the government. (Sources: Daily Wire; NewsMax)

The EPA administrator culcable for the last-minute $20 BILLION giveaway is Michael S, Regan, a Biden appointee.

Michael S. Regan, EPA Administrator 2021-2024

~E

70-year-old woman lives in her car in Arizona

This is heartbreaking.

Beth is 70 years old.

She had worked her entire adult life, including being a librarian. From the condition of her teeth (straight), she clearly was at least middle class. But she did not save her money and, as the rent on her apartment kept increasing, she found herself living in her car. Occasionally, she would check into a motel to bathe and shelter herself from inclement weather.

This is her video explaining why she lives in her car:

I’ve subscribed to her channel and will try to watch as many of her videos as I can because YouTube will monetize (pay) her when the number of her subscribers and watch hours of her videos reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours. As of this morning, she has 9,080 subscribers. In her most recent video (this morning), she says she’ll soon accumulate enough watch hours to be monetized.

You can also donate, here.

From the comments on her videos, there are other women, many elderly, who also are living in their cars. Good grief.

~E

California is worst state to raise a family

Surprise!

Not.

To go to the interactive map, click on the Consumer Affairs link below.

From Consumer Affairs, Dec. 10, 2024:

To determine the best states for raising a family in 2025, ConsumerAffairs compared each state on cost, safety, education, health care and quality of life.

The bottom five states for raising a family are all located in the West and South and face significant challenges in education and quality of life.

  • California ranks at the bottom, with poor scores in quality of life, affordability, safety, high child poverty rates, a shortage of libraries and bad air quality.
  • Texas follows closely behind, scoring poorly in health care, safety and quality of life. The state has the lowest pediatric health care score, with the highest percentages of uninsured children and families that can’t afford their children’s health care bills.
  • New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada round out the bottom, with poor public education and lower rankings in quality of life.

Vermont is the best state to raise a family in. It finished first in quality of life, sixth in child health care access and sixth in education. The top five states for raising a family are Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Wyoming.

~E

“It’s the economy, stupid”

Truer words were never spoken when it comes to elections.

The media is working overtime to gaslight the people into voting for the “chosen one,” Kamala Harris, by claiming the U.S. is not in a recession.

Yesterday the stock market took a hard punch. It fell by 2%, the worst drop since 2022. If you want to keep your blood pressure normal, don’t check your 401(k) and investment account balances right now.

Intel announced on Friday that it was laying off 15% of its workforce. This comes months after the Biden administration gave Intel $8.5 billion in grants to help bring back chipmaking to the U.S. Great job, Biden, by “spurring processor manufacturing in the US.”

Within the past year Nike has laid off 5% of their workforce. This combined with Intel’s layoffs, was a hard hit for the progressive-run state of Oregon.

Last September I wrote about CVS closing 900 stores noting that America is in decline, particularly in democrat-run cities. As a result, our nation is (still) facing the following:

  • Increased inflation
  • Increased debt (both for the nation and many individual households)
  • Increased crime with soft-on-punishment policies
  • Open borders with thousands of illegal aliens arriving daily as well as drugs (particularly fentanyl) pouring into our cities

If you think things will get better with the new Harris/Walz ticket, think again. Tim Walz is a hardcore leftist who recently stated on a “White Dudes for Harris” get-together: “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”

A preview of our economy and the US under this “progressive” ticket of Harris and Walz:

All of it, up in flames.

DCG

Get out of California: Newsom’s budget will defund fighting crime

We all know about the crime in California. Get ready for things to get worse as it’s no doubt going to happen. From the Daily Mail:

California’s Dem. Gov Gavin Newsom unveils new plans to defund the police in crime-ridden state after massive budget deficit

In 2022 Newsom bragged of having a $97.5 billion surplus. Fast forward two years later and the state now faces a $45 billion deficit. Great job, democrats.

From the article:

California governor Gavin Newsom‘s proposed new budget would slash funding for the police as the state struggles with a massive deficit of at least $45 billion.

Last month the Democrat unveiled his budget for the next fiscal year, admitting that ‘difficult decisions’ are needed to address the state’s deficit – including a 1.6 percent reduction in the state’s Department of Justice’s overall funding.

The proposed budget includes a $97 million cut to trial court operations, $10 million to the Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement and over $80 million to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as reported by Fox News. 

Newsom’s plan comes as major national stores and local businesses in California say they continue to face rampant theft. Videos of large-scale thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have often gone viral.

Crime data shows the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022. Across the state, shoplifting rates rose during the same time period but were still lower than the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, while commercial burglaries and robberies have become more prevalent in urban counties.

Meanwhile homelessness jumped 6 percent to more than 180,000 people in California last year, federal data show. And since 2013, the numbers have exploded by 53 percent with the state accounting for a third of America’s entire homeless population.

The state’s criminal justice record which saw the number of violent crimes jump by 27 percent between 2013 and 2022, and pickpocketing more than double.

Read the whole story here.

Voters in California about to learn the hard way:

DCG

It’s good to be a Congress critter!

I haven’t checked my investment account in a couple of weeks because the last time I did, it was just too darn depressing.

Shocking no one, therre is an apparent way to avoid this: become a member of the U.S. Congress!

From Daily Mail:

“Investors dedicate countless hours to solving the mystery of how to beat the stock market – and many lose millions of dollars in the process.

But the answer might be simple: Just copy Congress.

A tool which copies trades made by members of Congress and their families has gained nearly 20 percent this year – performing twice as well as the stock market average of eight to ten percent.

And a separate tool which is dedicated to tracking Nancy Pelosi‘s investments reveals her portfolio has returned a remarkable 50 percent in the last 12 months, vastly outperforming the 17 percent gains of the benchmark S&P500 index of America’s top companies.

The tools were created by Quiver Quantitative, which uses public disclosures from members of Congress to mirror their trading activity and track the results.

The disclosures reveal some politicians have displayed a near-prophetic ability to invest in companies just days before their stock prices explode. Some sit on congressional committees linked to the firm’s they’ve invested in.

James Kardatzke, CEO of Quiver Quantitative, told DailyMail.com: ‘You can almost certainly see instances where there seems to be people acting on information that they may have been receiving in committee meetings, or may have been receiving just based on the nature of their job.’

Quiver Quantitative has singled out several trades for their success. None of the members of Congress have been accused of insider trading. 

Quiver Quantitative’s separate tracker for Nancy Pelosi’s trading activity has returned around 50 percent since last December. Pelosi has profited hugely from massive gains this year in the stock price of Nvidia, the chipmaker whose valuation has passed $1 trillion thanks to the AI boom. Pelosi also owns millions of dollars worth of Microsoft and Apple stock, which have both risen by around 55 percent since the beginning of the year.

Current rules allow members of Congress to trade stocks freely, but they must report their trading and they are barred from using non-public information to inform their purchases. But the fine for lawmakers who break the rules is typically just $200.

Read the whole story here.

No matter how we vote, we just can’t seem to drain this:

DCG

World Economic Forum agent extols digital currency

A demonic-looking speaker for the World Economic Forum (that foments a global “Great Reset“) extols replacing cash with digital currency as a government tool to lock out the “less desirables,” such as buyers of guns and ammunition.

On March 2, 2022, the Biden administration put its support behind the research and development of a “U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency” (CBDC) by signing a sweeping executive order instructing the federal government to begin research and submit reports on a variety of issues surrounding digital currencies. (yahoo!news)

~E

 

San Francisco, failed city

Man caught pooping in aisle of a Safeway store in San Francisco. (Khon2)

Matthew Lynn reports for The (UK) Telegraph, May 7, 2023:

San Francisco should be one of the best retail centres globally; an easy place to sell every kind of luxury good, fashion essentials and high end electronics. The money is there, as well as the people to spend it.

Yet this week, the department store Nordstrom announced it was shutting its locations in the city, joining a growing exodus of big name retailers. Household brands are in despair over the damage inflicted by an ultra-woke local government….

Nordstrom’s announcement was yet another blow for San Francisco’s battered retail industry. The company told employees it would not be renewing its leases at the Westfield Mall, nor at the Nordstrom Rack across the street, due to the “changed dynamics” in the city.

The “deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco,” Westfield Mall told the Washington Post, has left both customers and staff unsafe.

The retailer is hardly the first to put up the “closing down sale” signs. The upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods has shuttered a flagship store; the H&M, Gap and Banana Republic have all left. While some British high streets risk becoming boarded-up wastelands, they could soon look positively vibrant compared to what used to be known as “the golden city”.

There is no great mystery here. Under its ultra-woke Mayor, London Breed, San Francisco has been testing out a wide array of faddish, progressive policies. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Breed was one of the first to jump on the “defund the police” bandwagon, cutting $120 million from the law and order budget.

Sales and corporate taxes have been pushed up. Homelessness has been tolerated right across the city centre. Motorists reportedly leave car windows and doors unlocked to deter overnight break-ins.

Last summer, a groups of business officials wrote to officials threatening to stop paying taxes if politicians failed to clear litter from the streets and stop people from openly taking drugs….

The quality of life has deteriorated steadily in San Francisco, not least for those who cannot afford to escape to the wealthier suburbs. Businesses are shunning the city, perhaps deterred by an increasingly unfavourable local tax, social and regulatory environment.

In 2021, foreign direct investment into new projects in San Francisco fell to their lowest level since 2009. And as shops close, real estate prices are tumbling. Let’s not forget that one of the big reasons the San Francisco based First Republic Bank had to be rescued was because of expected losses on property loans. The city is slipping into a vicious cycle of decline from which it is hard to see any exit….

There is a lesson in the closure of Nordstrom in San Francisco. It is one of the wealthiest places in the world. It has a per capita income of $160,000 (£126,000), according to figures from the Federal Reserve….

It is often complacently assumed that businesses will just take any amount of punishment so long as there are still customers with money to spend. You can push taxes up to any level you like, let crime run out of control, turn the streets over to vagrants, and impose as many virtue-signalling rules and regulations as you can think of, and they will stoically put up with it all because they need the market. San Francisco is a warning that that is simply not true.

There is always a final straw. That was true of Nordstrom and the golden city…. Ultra left local governments can destroy even successful cities – and once it starts it is almost impossible to reverse.

~E

The exodus from blue states to red states

Kevin Stocklin reports for The Epoch Times: that both businesses and residents are fleeing blue states into red states:

As a result of its political divisions, the United States appears to now be dividing itself into prosperous, high-growth states and states that are suffering a chronic decline….

Caterpillar and Citadel, which announced their exit from Illinois in June, are only the latest firms to leave high-tax, high-regulation states. Tesla, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Remington are also among the hundreds of companies flocking out of California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to business-friendly places such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee. Relocating companies have spanned industries including tech, finance, media, heavy manufacturing, autos, and firearms.

“There is a great migration going on, and I expect it to accelerate,” Glen Hamer, president of the Texas Association of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When the Caterpillars and the Elon Musks relocate, it’s an advertisement to the entire country and the entire world that something positive is going on in that state. And there is a multiplier effect.”

According to a 2022 survey of 700 CEOs, the top states for business are Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina. The worst states for business were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington.

Even companies such as Apple, which didn’t move its headquarters to Texas, chose to establish its second-largest campus for employees there. Amazon selected Houston as one of its prime hubs. Ford, Volkswagen, and Nissan chose Tennessee as the location for major new manufacturing facilities. And in some cases, entire industries, such as firearms, which are being targeted by legislation and lawsuits in blue states, are moving south….

When jobs leave, people leave with them. According to the U.S. Census, Democrat-run states California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois together lost 4 million people between 2010 and 2019, the so-called leftugees. During the same period, the states with the greatest influx of people were Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona….

Florida attracted 624,000 new residents in 2020, along with more than $40 billion in income, equating to an estimated $23.7 billion in new tax income. Florida has enjoyed two decades of net in-migration, amounting to a total income gain of $197 billion….

According to a report based on IRS data by Wirepoints, an Illinois-based economic research organization, the cost of losing companies and people is stark for states such as Illinois, which has seen decreases in its population for 21 straight years.

Since 2000, that state has lost a total of $535 billion in income that moved away, which equates to about $25 billion in lost tax revenue during that period, and $4 billion in 2020 alone. Illinois’ problems include a loss of 114,000 residents in 2021, a string of 21 consecutive years of state budget deficits, a $313 billion deficit in public pensions, and the second-highest property tax rates in the country.

“Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward spiral it can’t hope to escape from without fundamentally changing how it governs,” the Wirepoints report reads. “Structural property tax reform, reductions in pension debt, slashing units of local government—the state needs to do all these things if it wants to convince Illinoisans to stay and persuade other Americans to move in.”

Reducing violent crime would also help. Escalating crime was reportedly a factor, one among many, in Citadel’s decision to leave Chicago for Miami.

This exodus has many consequences and implications,  one of which is the hardening of the Left-Right division in America as blue states get even bluer with the loss of conservative voters, while red states get redder with the addition of conservative escapees.

~E

18 of America’s 20 worst cities are run by Democrats

WalletHub compared the operating efficiency of 150 of the largest U.S. cities to determine which among them are managed best, based on a “Quality of Services” score made up of 38 metrics grouped into 6 service categories:

  1. Financial stability
  2. Education
  3. Health
  4. Safety
  5. Economy
  6. Infrastructure and Pollution

Each city’s “Quality of Services” score is then measured against the city’s per-capita budget. (To find out more about WalletHub’s methodology, go here.)

Source: WalletHub

No surprise to us, Los Angeles, CA (#134), Chicago, IL (#141), Oakland, CA (#144), Detroit, MI (#145), New York, NY (#148), San Francisco, CA (#149), and Washington, DC (#15o) are ranked among the worst — all governed by Democrats.

In fact, 18 of the 20 worst managed cities have Democrat mayors. The two exceptions are #146 Gulfport, TN (Republican mayor Billy Hewes) and #147 Chattanooga, TN (Independent mayor Tim Kelly).

But that fact won’t deter the voters of those cities to reelect Democrats, which is a sure indicator of their mental illness.

Here’s the list of the 150 cities, ranked from best (#1) to worst (#150):

Overall Rank (1=Best)  City ‘Quality of City Services’ Rank  ‘Total Budget per Capita’ Rank 
1 Nampa, ID 23 1
2 Boise, ID 4 3
3 Fort Wayne, IN 63 2
4 Nashua, NH 5 9
5 Lexington-Fayette, KY 44 6
6 Lincoln, NE 8 19
7 Durham, NC 25 11
8 Rapid City, SD 81 4
9 Las Cruces, NM 65 5
10 Virginia Beach, VA 2 36
11 Raleigh, NC 11 29
12 Missoula, MT 67 12
13 Oklahoma City, OK 88 8
14 Manchester, NH 29 20
15 Provo, UT 3 38
16 Sioux Falls, SD 31 21
17 Billings, MT 86 13
18 Madison, WI 6 42
19 Chesapeake, VA 17 34
20 Huntington Beach, CA 1 55
21 Louisville, KY 80 17
22 Greensboro, NC 57 23
23 Arlington, TX 28 31
24 Salem, OR 54 26
25 Mesa, AZ 58 25
26 Bismarck, ND 12 48
27 Charleston, SC 15 44
28 Columbus, GA 95 16
29 Cedar Rapids, IA 34 39
30 Warwick, RI 26 43
31 Albuquerque, NM 127 10
32 Tucson, AZ 111 14
33 Warren, MI 74 28
34 Huntington, WV 114 15
35 Aurora, IL 51 37
36 Phoenix, AZ 65 35
37 Grand Rapids, MI 33 47
38 Lewiston, ME 85 30
39 Tulsa, OK 110 22
40 Topeka, KS 76 40
41 Reno, NV 43 49
42 Worcester, MA 48 52
43 St. Petersburg, FL 42 54
44 Mobile, AL 96 32
45 Fort Worth, TX 56 53
46 El Paso, TX 64 50
47 Wichita, KS 124 24
48 Portland, ME 21 69
49 Corpus Christi, TX 99 41
50 Colorado Springs, CO 78 51
51 Baton Rouge, LA 129 27
52 Las Vegas, NV 49 61
53 Aurora, CO 79 56
54 Gary, IN 141 18
55 Fairbanks, AK 102 45
56 Des Moines, IA 53 62
57 Eugene, OR 38 71
58 Fort Smith, AR 123 33
59 Rutland, VT 59 67
60 Fargo, ND 35 79
61 Spokane, WA 60 68
62 San Diego, CA 7 97
63 Santa Ana, CA 39 81
64 Jackson, MS 148 7
65 Omaha, NE 27 86
66 Little Rock, AR 122 46
67 Hialeah, FL 55 78
68 Indianapolis, IN 93 60
69 Portland, OR 19 95
70 Boston, MA 14 100
71 Akron, OH 97 65
72 Montgomery, AL 119 58
73 Garland, TX 52 89
74 Salt Lake City, UT 16 106
75 Anchorage, AK 83 82
76 Tallahassee, FL 73 85
77 Fremont, CA 13 113
78 Houston, TX 100 73
79 Jacksonville, FL 109 70
80 Frederick, MD 22 108
81 Dayton, OH 101 74
82 Austin, TX 10 117
83 Columbia, SC 103 76
84 Dover, DE 120 64
85 Springfield, MA 121 63
86 Miami, FL 50 96
87 Casper, WY 104 80
88 Tampa, FL 40 101
89 Providence, RI 116 72
90 San Antonio, TX 47 103
91 St. Paul, MN 45 104
92 Columbus, OH 82 92
93 New Orleans, LA 136 57
94 San Jose, CA 20 121
95 Dallas, TX 89 93
96 Burlington, VT 32 114
97 Norfolk, VA 107 88
98 Charleston, WV 128 77
99 Bridgeport, CT 117 83
100 Richmond, VA 87 98
101 Kansas City, MO 112 91
102 Anaheim, CA 69 111
103 Cincinnati, OH 72 112
104 Fort Lauderdale, FL 41 120
105 Charlotte, NC 24 126
106 Toledo, OH 142 66
107 Orlando, FL 61 118
108 Bakersfield, CA 130 86
109 Shreveport, LA 147 59
110 Milwaukee, WI 126 90
111 Nashville, TN 105 105
112 Lubbock, TX 118 101
113 Knoxville, TN 46 130
114 Seattle, WA 9 140
115 Minneapolis, MN 37 133
116 Modesto, CA 108 109
117 Stockton, CA 145 75
118 Birmingham, AL 132 94
119 Syracuse, NY 84 123
120 Sacramento, CA 92 122
121 Pittsburgh, PA 68 129
122 Buffalo, NY 91 125
123 Riverside, CA 90 127
124 Atlanta, GA 77 132
125 Wilmington, DE 113 119
126 Fresno, CA 133 107
127 Long Beach, CA 62 139
128 Baltimore, MD 135 110
129 Cheyenne, WY 98 135
130 Denver, CO 71 141
131 Kansas City, KS 138 116
132 St. Louis, MO 149 84
133 Memphis, TN 143 115
134 Los Angeles, CA 75 143
135 New Haven, CT 137 124
136 Yonkers, NY 70 144
137 Philadelphia, PA 134 128
138 Rochester, NY 115 138
139 Tacoma, WA 106 142
140 Hartford, CT 144 131
141 Chicago, IL 140 136
142 Cleveland, OH 139 137
143 Flint, MI 146 134
144 Oakland, CA 94 147
145 Detroit, MI 150 99
146 Gulfport, MS 125 145
147 Chattanooga, TN 131 146
148 New York, NY 36 148
149 San Francisco, CA 18 149
150 Washington, DC 30 150

~E