I have about 1 inch of water in my basement. Not that I'm concerned, I have pumps. This has happened before. My parents grew up in a small town called Pine Grove. It made the news yesterday. Hershey Park was closed yesterday. We had flooding like this about 12 years ago and some of their animals drowned. Now they take extreme precautions. Right now, we have a steady rain, not heavy, the kind we like to think of as a 'soaking rain.' That's fine. My basement floods when we get torrential downpours.
Sticking with that water motif, I'm going to segue into Aquaman. Cute, huh? Sounds a bit fishy to me. Anyway, the trailer for Aquaman was dropped at Comicon. Looks good, very colorful. Best line in trailer in decades: "Redheads, you gotta love 'em."
Finally, a bit about the economy. Everybody is smiling. The Idiot Jerk in the White House smugly gives a thumbs up "see how it's growing under my administration." For those who don't know, the economy grows when people spend money. The more they spend, the faster it grows. True: unemployment is low. False: people are making more money. That's where the stink comes in. Personal debt is growing by leaps and bounds. Banks don't care. Retailers don't care. And sure as hell, the Idiot Jerk in the White House doesn't care. They don't care if the average person is spending around 26% of his or her paycheck on debt alone. Their philosophy is: just give them more credit. As long as people are spending money like it's going out of style the economy is going to grow. This is why the Fed increases interest rates, to slow down that growth, to keep it from becoming overwhelming. Corporate America likes to fluff over interest payments. They want Mark and Mary Moron to just get another credit card, or apply for a Home Equity loan in order to go on vacation. Conservative economics say that if you spend more money, businesses will make more money and they will, as a result give out larger pay increases. Well that never happens. Pay increases are bad for the bottom line. For them the P & L is Holy. In fact, that's one of the things you hear about this economy. Where are the pay increases?
So, is the economy great? Sure, as long as you don't look at personal debt. High interest payments are at the point of breaching the dikes of our personal savings. Financially, the country is under a severe flood watch. The flood warning is just around the corner.
