Trump is running.

 As expected, Trump declared he is running for President yesterday. A lot of people like Trump and will vote for him. Trump can fill up a sports stadium with supporters for a campaign speech. While president last time Trump got GNP growth up to 3+ % from Obama's miserable 1%. He built the border fence. He got Kim Jong what's-his-face to stop launching missiles. He got the stock markets up.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people who detest Trump. Democrats, bureaucrats, newsies, are leading anti Trump voices. I have no idea how Trump's candidacy will worth this time. Certainly DeSantos from Florida looks good.

 It snowed up in the notch last night.  First snow of the winter.  Not much, only 1/4 inch.  Enough to turn the grass and the cars white, not enough to make the roads white.

Thor: Love and Thunder.

It's a new 2022 Marvel super hero movie. It does have Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and Natalie Portman but that is about all that's familiar to me. Thor enters the flick wearing a bathrobe. There is a weirdo old man trying to kill every one. It ain't what I think of as a Marvel Thor movie. It is only mildly interesting. I got it from Netflix.

Polls Not Very Helpful

 Political polls, beloved of TV news commentators, were not very useful this time.  Most of them showed a 1 or 2 percent difference between candidates.  That is a dead heat in my book; either candidate is equally likely to win.  Not much prediction to be had here.  And, despite a lot of talk about a red wave, the election was pretty even Steven.  Which is a pity, Biden gets another two years to drive the country deeper into the ground.  

  Two things that make telephone polls hard to do and all the polls are telephone polls.  Nowadays people won’t talk to pollsters.  Ten or fifteen years ago we count do telephone polling before elections.  People were sort of flattered that the party cared enough to call them.  They were cordial, they would chat.  Not anymore.  Last time I did telephone calling, they just hung up.  Tired of robocallers I guess.

   And then we have smart phones.  My three children don’t have landline phones, they all use smart phones.  They don’t have a phone book for smart phones, so you have trouble dialing voters and not winding up talking to a business receptionist. 

Silence gives assent.

When they smear you, have to say something.  Otherwise people begin to think the smear is true.  You must say something, say the smear is false, say there is some other reason, turn the smear around and lay it on them.  Say something.

Republicans need to work on this.  During last election Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to end, (or reduce) social security benefits.  Totally untrue.  Nobody wants to end or reduce social security because of the furor it would create.  A huge number of people live on social security and any reduction would cause them severe hardship.  Every Republican knows this, and would never touch social security.  Yet Democrats were able to accuse Republicans of this, and the Republicans let them get away with it.  Republicans never came out and said we have no intention of reducing social security because we know how much people depend on it.

Something ought to be done.  Maybe the Republican National Committee needs to work up a “Smear of the Week that needs answering” list and pass it out to candidates and state committees. 

Mid terms disappoint.

 Yesterday's mid term elections were disappointing. New Hampshire voters decided to keep their worthless congressional delegation. I had hoped New Hampshire voters would have been smartest than that. They were not. With democrat Biden administration running us out of gasoline and fuel oil, I had hoped for a Republican Congress to fix it. They are still counting but it does not look good. Looks like the democrats will be left to finish wrecking the country.

Social Security. The third rail of American politics. Touch it and die.

   No one with two brain cells is going to reduce social security, no matter what Democrats are claiming on TV. No Republican is that dumb.  There might be a few Democrats who are that dumb but I doubt it.  The current talk on TV about reducing social security is just talk, nobody, Republican or Democrat, is going to do it because the political backlash would be too severe.

Likewise talk on TV about the feds taking money away from social security is just talk from ignorant people.  TV is full of very ignorant people. 

Social security works like this.  Every worker has money taken from his paycheck and given to social security.  In many years, this year for example, social security takes in more money in taxes than it has to pay out in benefits.  The difference is large, billions of dollars.  So what does social security do with the extra money that they will need in a few years?  Answer, they buy US treasury bonds.  They pay modest interest, they are the safest investment on the planet.  America has never ever failed to pay off on its bonds.   And everyone, politicians, economists, business men, who ever,  is against social security investing the money in banks or stocks or anything private, doing such amounts to Uncle Sam investing a lost of money in where ever, which amounts to gaining government control of some private enterprise, at which point it is no longer a private enterprise. And there is no question that US bonds will pay off for social security when social security needs the money.