Sad day

[PTmowerMech]

What ever is and has been going on in the middle east, with covid and almost everything else, you can bet that we don't know the half if it.

 

[MainelyMower]

Such a good forum until politics rears it's ugly head.

 

[pilotbuddy]

Afghanistan was a mistake from start to finish
No foreign power has been able to rule Afghanistan for the past 300 years .
While the timing may have not been particularly sound , what happened was going to happen eventually.
The other alternative was to continue to provide air support for the regular army indefinately till every man & woman of serving age was killed .
What escapes most news rooms is that the Afghan regularly army has been loosing 14,000 soldiers a year for the past 5 years when the US ( and OZ ) pulled out regular ground troops.
Without the air support the regulars knew they would be killed before long.
Remember the Talibahn honestly believe that they are doing their Gods work , most of their troops are peasant farmers with nothing to loose , largely uneducated except for what they were taught in the mosques and in the case of the Pashtuns displaced from what they believe was the land God gave them .

And for the benefit of Slomo. it was actually President Trump who made the deal with the Talibahn all President Biden did was to do what president Trump had already committed the USA to do .

Except Trump would have done it properly. Not like Pedojoe!

 

[StarTech]

What ever is and has been going on in the middle east, with covid and almost everything else, you can bet that we don't know the half if it.

Well put...We all are mushrooms. We all are keep in the dark and fed manure.

 

[Lord_Cavendish]

How is it that gas prices went up from 2008 to 2016 with a D, down from 2016 to 2020 with an R, and now with a D, they're going up.....?

OK mate, I'll bite. How about "correlation isn't causation".

 

[bertsmobile1]

Yes !!!! Pre- Jackin'-Joke-Biden, my gas at Costco = 2.499/gallon, After biden, same gas at Costco = 4.299/gallon.

One of the big, in fact the biggest problem with command capitalist economies is the massive waste of resources and the squandering of things because for you they are cheap .
Every where else on the planet has taxes on fuel that makes it more expensive than the USA.
Thus EU & Asian designed cars are much more fuel efficient than US cars .
It was interesting a few years back when a "show us your truck" thread was running , just how many contractors thought they needed 200+Hp trucks to tow their mowers with .
Even more interesting was how many decided they needed massive engines in their mowers .
Back when money was tight ride ons were around 4" / hp now it ins down to around 2.5 "/ Hp grass evolved to be more more resistant ?

Considering that the world is going to hell in a hand basket from increasingly frequent & violent storms, that flood rivers & kill people . and considering that one of the big driving factors is atmospheric CO2 then forcing people to use fuel more economically is a good idea.
Only 2 ways to do that by legislation or by taxation and there is no way the good citizens of the USA would comply with the first option.

And FWIW OZ is the biggest energy exporter on the planet and a nett exporter of oil & gas but we currently pay between $ 5.50 & $ 6.00 US per US ( short ) gallon for e10 and 20% more for high octane

 

[bertsmobile1]

Again, the reason gas prices are up is because of OPEC, not anything Biden did. Read about it on places other then Fox News.

Actually fuel prices move because of the actions of share market day traders , pension funds & hedge funds .
If the oil went strait from the wells to the refineries then to the end user it would be about 1/2 to 1/3 of the pump price.
But futures traders buy up production that has not been made yet then set a sale price to maximumise their profits.
Because stock markets run largely on rhumours & inuendo and so many second tier investors just follow any slight market trend the scare of a possible potential shortage of oil allows the theives in the middle to jack up prices.
The big drop in fuel prices was a result of the intermediates getting it wrong to the point that every storage facility was full.
US refineries were even renting old tankers to take the excess production.

As for things like oil prices, well the stock market publish prices and the futures market publish expected supply & demand figures updated hourly .
One of the key reasons why China has become a megga power is they set up their own oil futures market to cut out the leeches in the middle so Chinese industry gets their oil inputs for about 1/3 what the same factory would in the USA .
Things that a politican does often take a very long time to show a result.
The problems of capital accumulation by a minority that hold the majority to ransom go back to the Nixon administration watering down the financial regulations and he is log time gone.
The true results of thw Trump administration will start to show during the second Biddon term, should there be one .
What you see happening the day after a proclamation is made is the hysterical reaction to it not what it is actually doing .

 

[PTmowerMech]

Well put...We all are mushrooms. We all are keep in the dark and fed manure.

That's why it's so hard for me to pick a side. Even when they're saying something I agree with. Sooo many times I tell someone "we this politician said this or that. And he's right. I support him for that." Then a week, a month or a year goes by, and he does just the opposite.
Trump is a good example (because it's fresh in my mind). "Lock her up." That was something that convinced people to vote for him. Or Mexico building the wall, supporting the 2nd. All those things convinced people that he was their guy.
The very day after the election, he calls Bill and Hillary his friend and say he's not going to "lock her up." And it's the same thing with the wall, and the bump stock ban.
So now a days, I watch what they do more than listen to what they say. And never EVER pick a side. I don't even support the LP anymore. They've bit me in the butt a couple of times too.

 

[PTmowerMech]

Again, the reason gas prices are up is because of OPEC, not anything Biden did. Read about it on places other then Fox News.

Man, don't fall for that excuse. Fuel prices are up because the oil/gas companies are wanting to make more money. Exxon/mobil own most of the oil fields in the US. They own the trucks that deliver the oil to the refineries and the to the gas stations. They own the refineries. The prices on the stock market and OPEC is just an excuse.
Like the BS supply and demand excuse they used to use.
They dump a bunch of money into new oil fields, drilling rigs and hands. And a crap load of overhead for a while to suck up as much as possible. Then suddenly, the lay offs come. Equipment gets stored, and they sit back and reap the profits from all they've done in the last few years.
It's been the same thing since I was a kid. Boom & bust. Boom & bust. Everything they talk about, what they spew in the news, is just propaganda to justify their BS.

 

[PTmowerMech]

That was helpful...

My friends wife died this morning. According to him, she had nothing else wrong with her except Covid. I think this is a real deal. I just wished so many hadn't lied about all the numbers.

Like a woman I know who was in the final stages of dementia, living in a nursing home. Couldn't eat on her own, talk or much of anything else. She slipped out of bed one night and wasn't found for 5 hours. She had a big bruise on her face where she hit the floor.
Long story short, 24 hour later she's dead. Cause of death: Covid 19.