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PCIntern

(27,174 posts)
Wed Jan 29, 2025, 04:02 PM Jan 29

Here's an allusion:

Hypothetical: a freight train is being driven through the flatlands of America with six diesels at nearly-full throttle and two hundred and fifty five loaded tanker and boxcars all hurtling along at 125 mph along the steel ribbon.

Suddenly, the wheels lock up on the lead engine and a catastrophe of near-Biblical proportions occurs as the entire train derails, all crew are simultaneously exploded and then crushed to a thin film, the contents of many of the cars ignite, sending gigantic billows of smoke up into the atmosphere, and after a time, since emergency vehicles are tens and hundreds of miles away, there is the pervasive silence of death and obliteration.

This is the action movie equivalent of the immediate and total cessation of Federal funding in America. Perhaps this is what they wish to have happen, but then again, perhaps not.

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Here's an allusion: (Original Post) PCIntern Jan 29 OP
It's certainly analagous. No one knows what will occur soon. bucolic_frolic Jan 29 #1

bucolic_frolic

(48,783 posts)
1. It's certainly analagous. No one knows what will occur soon.
Wed Jan 29, 2025, 04:50 PM
Jan 29

I went shopping today. I'm seeing conflicting signals. Many shoppers, husbands and wives, walking slowly through the store. Blank numb stare. Older women, parsing each price. I saw a woman walk away from eggs. In various stores they were $4-7. Stores have closeout bins for shelf goods and vegetables too. They are populated, and disappear in a few hours. Walmart had a boatload of eyedropper flavorings for meat or tacos I think. 10 cents each. All sitting there.

Cooking oils have come down, as has sugar. Lentils are still 99 cents or so. To my eye retailers are discounting on some things to move them because they're end date is near, and trying to make it up on other items.

Braking federal spending while creating fear amid uncertainty - on interest rates, federal support of the social safety net, stock market gyrations, FDIC, SNAP - is difficult to read.

Corporate America is so efficient at fleecing the public as well as their employees that they can build palatial HQs, pay the CEO 50-100 million, pay the shareholders dividends, and lobby for no taxes. Ordinary workers are left so poor by this system that they have to lobby Congress to help them pay their bills. The privileged think it's more like paying them not to revolt, but I digress.

Federal expenditures are 20% of all the money spent in America. We risk instant recession along the magnitude of the Great Recession or the Dot Com collapse. Bernie Madoff was weak fish.

Just to remind there is a federal communications blackout. They're not telling us anything. Wonder who's walking off with the loot?

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