I Got a Letter from the IRS...

 I got a letter from the IRS telling me that they didn't have a bank account on record for me. That was a bit of a head scratcher because I've been paying my taxes electronically for years. In fact they had just taken $21,000 out of my checking account.

All sorts of red flags went up but the letter looked legitimate. So, I logged into my IRS account (yes, I have an IRS account) and discovered two things. First the letter was legitimate. I even found a copy of it in my account. Second, there were no bank accounts listed. I suppose they don't keep a copy of the account used to pay taxes due.

After thinking about it for a second or two, I didn't see any harm in providing my checking account so that's what I did. A short while later I got another letter telling me that someone had made changes to my account. Well, yeah, that was me, so no need to do anything. I still didn't know why they needed the account information.

Then a letter letter appeared a week or two later telling me that they owned me money! Well, that was a first. Apparently my accountant had miscalculated my penalty for not paying estimated tax by $136.19.

The letter said that I could expect to see the $136.19 in six to eight weeks. So now I understood why they wanted the bank account information but had to wonder why it was going to take six to eight weeks to deposit a whole $136.19.

Today, I found out why is took six to eight weeks. They sent me a paper check. You can't make this stuff up.

Shooting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner

An armed gunman attempted to gain access to the WHCD. His exact objective is unclear but the assumption is that he was either after Trump or some other administration official. Luckily he was captured by the Secret Service before he could cause any harm.

As if that's not crazy enough, an online conspiracy theory almost immediately sprung up that this was all staged by Trump or one of his cronies. That rapidly spread to people claiming that all three failed assassination attempts were staged.

I see no evidence to support that nonsense and a lot of evidence against it. For instance, how do you convince someone to be the fall guy and take the blame for the assassination attempt? If he's not in on i, then how do you find someone stupid enough to be convinced to give it a try?

The Trump Administration

It’s the Clown Cabinet headed by a petulant toddler. The team he sent to negotiate with the Iranians is the Buffoon Brigade. But the really bad news is that 40% of the electorate appear to think that he’s doing a great job. I don’t get it. I really don’t. 

I will now rant for a couple of paragraphs so feel free to ignore me.

During the 2024 election I agreed that we needed to address illegal immigration. I wanted DEI to go away and I was sick and tired of the “woke” bullshit (“woke” = declaring anyone that disagreed with the left as racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic or some other nasty name and the constant race swapping in movies and on TV).

Having a degree in Economics, I understood the dynamics of inflation coming out of the pandemic better than most, and understood that the worst was over.

But, I didn’t trust Trump or the Republicans to address immigration and DEI and the “woke” bullshit I could live with. They certainly weren’t a big enough problem to put Trump back in the White House.

I also understood that Trump was lying about bringing down prices on day one. I told everyone I could reach that this was nonsense. We all see how well I did with that.

I am honestly surprised that he was stupid enough to attack Iran. The geography is all in their favor. The world economy is now in a mess thanks to Trump's incompetence.

I get the issue of not wanting Iran to have nukes. But Trump went about it the wrong way and that may be worse than doing nothing.

To Hormuz or not to Hormuz

The US Navy is now supposedly blockading the Straits of Hormuz in order to prevent Iranian ships from passing through. The Navy has reportedly seized at least one Iranian flagged ship.

The Iranians opened the straits for a short while but then closed them again. They have reportedly fired on at least one ship which was flying the Indian flag.

I have to say things like "supposedly" and "reportedly" because honestly, I don't know what the hell is actually going on, and it's next to impossible to figure out what reports to believe.

The ceasefire ends on Tuesday and talks are supposed to resume on Monday. We all saw how well talks went the last time around.

I suspect one of the problems is that Trump and company want a quick resolution while the Iranians want to drag things out and see how good a deal they can broker.

The market has pretty much recovered but we'll see what happens next week.

Genocidal, Apartheid, Colonialist

Genocidal, Apartheid and Colonialist are the three accusations that the US Left likes to toss against Israel. OK, Let's take a look.

Genocidal? The Palestinian population has increased 5x since 1967. That's not much of a genocide. 

Apartheid? The area is separated into three major regions. Gaza, Israel proper and the West Bank. Gaza is Palestinian and has a population of about 2.2 million. It's also controlled by the terrorist group Hamas. 

Israel has a population of 10 million of which 2 million are Palestinians. These Palestinians are Israeli citizens with full rights but face challenges similar to other ethnic minorities in other countries. 

The West Bank is further divided into Areas A, B and C as agreed to in the Oslo Accords in 1993. Area A is under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. Area B is under civil control of the Palestinian Authority but Israel provides security. Areas A & B have a population of around 3.3 million Palestinians. Area C is fully under Israeli control. There are about 400,000 Israeli settlers in Area C with Israeli citizenship and around 300,000 Palestinians with Palestinian Authority citizenship.

Travel for Palestinians within the West Bank, and between the West Bank and just about anywhere else, is severely restricted. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank are of questionable legality. The consensus of opinion is that they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Israel disputes this, arguing the territory is "disputed" rather than occupied.

Let's face it, Israel is an occupying power in the West Bank thus the extensive travel restrictions. Areas A&B are essentially isolated because they are surrounded by Israeli controlled territory. It's almost a military blockade but it's not apartheid. On the other hand, a country has the right to control who enters its territory. In other words, it's a royal mess.

Colonialist? Well, there are 400,000 Israeli settlers in Area C of the West Bank. Depending upon the legal status of Area C, that may well be colonialism.

Then there is East Jerusalem which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 war and officially annexed by it in 1980. The United Nations considers East Jerusalem as part of Palestinian Territories. Funny how no one complained when Jordan Annexed both the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1950. The annexation was even recognized by the UK, Iraq and Pakistan. However Jordan essentially ceded sovereignty of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1988.

The Ignorance is Amazing

We all know that MAGAs simply parrot whatever they're told but the left isn't much better. They have evolved Israel into some imaginary bogeyman that, in their minds, has been pulling the strings in every confrontation the US has been involved in anywhere close to the Middle East.

For example, this post about wars that Israel has supposedly gotten the US into.

"Start with 9/11, Iraq, Syria, Libya, 

Afghanistan -20 YEARS.

Now Iran and who else???"

My response: (Yes, I got a little petulant because this isn't the first post like this)

What the hell are you talking about? Do yourself a favor and learn some actual history.

9/11 was an attack by Al-Qeada. It was primarily about US troops in Saudi Arabia although US support for Israel was also part of the motive. 

Let's face it, Arab Muslims in the Middle East have been trying to destroy Israel since 1948 and Arabs and Jews have been fighting over the region since at least the establishment of the Mandate for Palestine in 1922.

9/11 led directly to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Syria was all about ISIS and denying Russia control of the area.

The US has a strategic interest in the Middle East and has slowly been expanding its sphere of influence there. We have 50,000 troops spread out over Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. We also have friendly relations (in other words we give them money) with Israel and Egypt but no troops in either country. So Israel is just a small part of the total equation. 

Essentially you are blaming the mouse (Israel) for the actions of the elephant (the US).

Iran is the next logical step but it's a lot to chew off. US Presidents before Trump have been smart enough not to get into a confrontation because the geography is all in Iran's favor. 

Israel wants to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah because they regularly fire missiles at Israel killing civilians. Imagine if Mexico and Canada fired missiles randomly at the US. Iran bankrolls Hamas and Hezbollah. I don't blame Israel for wanting to take down Iran. I blame Trump and Hegseth for letting Netanyahu talk them into thinking an air assault alone would manage to do that. We all see how well that worked out.

Which Libya are you talking about? In 1986 it was in retaliation for a Berlin bombing. In 2011 it was a UN sanctioned action that led to the fall of the Gaddafi regime. Israel wasn't involved in either of these two actions.

The Affordability Crisis

Prices jumped significantly between 2021 and 2023.

That price increase was driven by cost-push inflation. This occurs when production costs increase leading companies to increase prices. The primary driver for these increases was reestablishing supply lines after COVID.

But notice something. The supply lines have been reestablished but the prices didn't go back down. Instead they're now driving huge corporate profits.

Normal inflation is caused by demand-pull inflation which occurs when consumer demand exceeds available supply. When you raise salaries on a broad scale in order to try and catch up with cost-push inflation, it will often lead to demand-pull inflation because more people have more money to spend. 

But raising salaries will always outpace demand-pull inflation. When salaries fail to keep up with inflation it is almost always cost-push inflation that is causing the problem.

Ceasefire Crumbling

Apparently no one told Israel about the ceasefire. They continued their strikes in Lebanon so Iran shut the Straits of Hormuz again. Well, it was nice to have a couple of hours of peace.

This is going to send the market into a tailspin.