The Schloss-Blog has been working on its laundry list: in other words, sh_t that Democrats should be shouting about from the rooftops, especially in the wake of last week's so successful off-year election results. For instance:
**Life is too expensive (well, it worked for Spanberger and Sherrill, so make it work for all of you - now, everyday, until next November);
**Everything costs more, even utilities. According to a J.D. Power report, monthly utility bills now eat up 6.3% of household budgets, up from 4.5 in 2020. And according to Texas-based Payless Power, two-fifths of low-income households have had overdue electric bills in the past year. One in three have faced utility turn-off notices. They say some people now fall so far behind on rent or utilities that they skip medications rather than have their power turned off.
**Specifically, since 2020, electricity has risen on average to $184 a month, gas is $99 a month and water is up around $99 a month.
**And it's going to get worse: Southern California Edison has requested a 19% rate increase for 2025 to 2028 and New York's Consolidated Edison has asked for a 13% increase over that same period.
**Comforting, huh? Meds; or electricity and water.
***
Good financial news though for people with good finances: The National Council on Aging says that people who earn $120,000 a year will likely live nine years longer than people who earn less than $20,000 a year.
I guess that gives me about six years more, on average,.
***
AI is coming, a little more at a time: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenAI have signed a seven-year, $38bn cloud computing agreement that allows OpenAI to run core generative AI workloads on AWS infrastructure, according to Yahoo Finance.
Should fit perfectly with amazon's plans to cut ... how many thousands of jobs and replace them with AI?
Thirty-thousand, that is.
I'd like to see AI operate a forklift, deliver a package.
No, wait...
***
My dear friend Judy Shoen, a colleague from my days at Restaurants & Institutions magazine, used to love to tell the story of how, sitting in a Starbucks in Phoenix one day, she noticed a gentleman sitting across the patio from her, sipping his beverage, reading his newspaper.
He looked familiar.
So she approached him and asked, "Didn't we once go on a match.com date?"
"No," he replied, "but I used to be your vice-president."
Yes, it was Dick Cheney.
***
Meanwhile, back on Earth 1, Donald Trump is killing America. He is killing Americans, denying them food and medical care, at least affordable medical care and insurance therefor.
He even went back to court to ensure that more than 40 million people don't get their SNAP (food stamps, that is) benefits. And the Affordable Care Act is under attack, coverage costs skyrocketing.
And transportation? Select airports (all of them, actually), will see the number of flights available decrease by as much as 20%, for starters.
Have fun traveling for the holidays.
All of this because he and his fellow lemming Republicans in Congress won't negotiate a conclusion to the shutdown, which would reinstate insurance and healthcare benefits and, very importantly, pay government employees and people like air traffic controllers, who guarantee our safety in the skies.
National parks are operating with volunteers with little to no services available.
Fun, huh?
Happy Thanksgiving.
***
Happy anniversary to my darling Jocelyn. She restarted her life to come to Chicago so we could be together.
Exactly 35 years later, we still are. Love you, sweetheart.
***
I'm off tonight on Radio Free Phoenix, with the Bohemian NightCat, John Kirk DeRitis, sitting in, as Joe Catanzaro did last week. Thanks, you guys.
I'm back on Radio Free Phoenix next Sunday, with my usual sigma and riz.
No comments:
Post a Comment