We’ve been watching For All Mankind — an alternate history of NASA. It saddens me that we no longer have a space program to speak of.
Retirement is not for the faint of heart. Navigating Medicare is a nightmare. Only politicians could cook up an unnecessarily complex insurance program such as Medicare.
Over the next few weeks, the hummingbirds and red headed woodpeckers that frequent our yard will begin migrating away to warmer climes. We will miss them, hoping they return next year.
Will increases to monthly rates for streaming services ever end? Of course not. There’s money to be made and share holders to pay. I vaguely remember being told “cutting the cord” would save us money. Maybe then, but not now.
Cannabis isn’t a miracle drug, but for people with chronic pain, it can be a lifesaver.
A God who can but won’t in the face of suffering is a deity unworthy of our love and worship.
We took a drive though the Michigan Amish community not from our home. Roadside vegetable stands had pumpkins for sale — yet another reminder that summer is fading.
Democrats keep telling us that we are not in an economic recession. That dog don’t hunt, manufacturing employees say. Increasing prices, stagnant wages, increased insurance costs suggest otherwise. When’s the last time we’ve had a president tell us the truth about the economy?
Toledo Edison (First Energy) doubled their electric rates. Our bill for July was the highest in our 45 years of marriage. We switched providers, but Toledo Edison has two months to make the switch.
I haven’t given up on the Cincinnati Reds. August play will determine my interest level. Once college and pro football arrive, it takes the Reds playing winning baseball for me to keep watching. I remain hopeful.
Bonus: I preached my first sermon fifty years ago. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I really appreciate your perspective here, Bruce. I’m reading Walter Brueggemann’s Money and Possessions. You could erase God from this picture, and still have quite a telling and ringing critique of coveting, greed, and the total dedication to the pursuit of money as opposed to a neighborly society for the common good. I see only one functioning political party in the United States, but actually what did we really have even in the best part of our lifetimes? Your thought helped me see that really such a deep concern about the potential near certain loss of democracy at least in the short-term pales in comparison with what got the US here in the first place. A full throttled, full-bore blessing or at least largely blind eye to the pursuit of greed in a god called the market backed 1,000% by religious people who never gave it much of a second thought, myself included in the past. It’s the air we breathe, but too many are dying in it, and are letting their voices be known. But a lot of other nonsense going on too, of course. But Brueggemann’s book is helping me see how central money and possessions is in the Bible and the world as you might expect since the Bible was written by humans in the real world, and how all of this really plays out in spades more and more in the US. Yes, I wish a president was brutally honest for a change. Like the movie, was it Liar Liar in which he couldn’t tell a lie, of course blurting out his truth all the time. I’m beginning to wonder if my friend is onto something in his insisting that he’ll vote for Cornell West.
Soon the goldenrod will bloom giving the honeybees their last chance to store up honey and pollen for the winter. Goldenrod has lots of edible parts for people. Ragweed is what makes people suffer not goldenrod. Why would any person donate money to help a billionaire pay his legal bills? What did PT Barnum say about suckers?
If we had a President who told us the truth about the economy, January 6 would look like a picnic. The conspirators might be different—or maybe not: some might, just might, realize how they’ve been had.
If a President were to level with us about the economy, people might no longer accept tax breaks for billionaires and war as necessary evils. I believe that would lead, among other things to—ironically enough—a Veteran’s Administration that actually works for the people in its title. I say that because people might finally understand why enlistees enlist and what their duties actually are—which don’t include being a Praetorian Guard. Their injuries, whether physical or moral (everyone who serves incurs them, whether or not they realize it) would be seen as what they are and not simply a consequence of what “they signed up for.”
Oh, about Medicare: I’m in the process of enrolling. You’re right! Most politicians are or were lawyers, who can complicate absolutely anything.
“Democrats keep telling us that we are not in an economic recession. That dog don’t hunt.”
That’s a salient point, that worries me about a possible non-consecutive Trump second term. Inflation is a President slayer, just ask Jimmy Carter. Yes, the economy isn’t in recession. Inflation isn’t even that bad (and much better than most countries), but the perception and remedy that “I’m paying more for groceries and gas… let’s elect the fascist!” worries the hell out of me.
August is the month of lament for me as well. The days get noticeably shorter, Pleiades rising in the evening. There will soon be a cool wind and that first frosty morning.
Streaming services. I wish we could quit you! I know we’re getting ripped off, but no paper trail to figure out we just paid $10 to watch nothing.
One thing added to the list of just how bad a President Nixon was when he cancelled Apollo 18, 19, and 20. These would have been great missions and a great scientific bonanza. As for the alt history of the space program… I doubt Russian winning the Moon race would have kept the space race going, though the show does have an interesting premise. (I haven’t seen it)
For all of you saying that the current administration is not admitting to there being a Recession, please look at the economic indicators that are required for a recession as defined by Forbes.
WHAT IS A RECESSION?
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-a-recession/
A recession is a significant decline in economic activity that lasts for months or even years. Experts declare a recession when a nation’s economy experiences negative gross domestic product (GDP), rising levels of unemployment, falling retail sales, and contracting measures of income and manufacturing for an extended period of time. Recessions are considered an unavoidable part of the business cycle—or the regular cadence of expansion and contraction that occurs in a nation’s economy.
US GDP
* U.S. gdp for 2022 was $25,462.70B, a 9.21% increase from 2021.
* U.S. gdp for 2021 was $23,315.08B, a 10.71% increase from 2020.
The current us unemployment rate is 3.5%. The lowest in decades.
United States Personal Income
Personal income rates have been rising (0.3 to 0.5%) per month though admittedly not as much as cost of goods.
Retail sales were up year-over-year by 6%.
Retail sales numbers are not adjusted for price changes, so inflation decreasing could be impacting the results.1 However, some economists think it consumers could finally be slowing their spending amid persistent inflation.
PLAIN AND SIMPLE, THESE RECENT ECONOMIC INDICATORS DO NOT INDICATE A RECESSION.
“PLAIN AND SIMPLE, THESE RECENT ECONOMIC INDICATORS DO NOT INDICATE A RECESSION.”
No need to shout. I use the word recession in a general (colloquial) sense; as understood by the average worker on the street. Economic terms used by the government often cloud and obfuscate what’s actually going on. For example, unemployment rate doesn’t count all unemployed people, nor does it count the underemployed. Consumer Price Index (CPI) is another one. Does it actually reflect the actual cost for goods and services? It’s a selective tool, one that does not accurately reflect the true cost of living.
Surely you don’t think GDP is a good way to judge prosperity? As far as the two years you mentioned, stimulus money drove up the GDP. Trillions of dollars were pumped into the economy to hide the fact that things are not as well off as they seem. Countless American businesses are currently in the tank.
Democrats can talk about the Biden economy in glowing terms all they want, but record corporate profits are primarily the driver of inflation, not consumer spending. Personally, I think the Fed is actually harming the economy with its rate hikes.
Thanks for commenting.
I agree that many people and communities are struggling, but this has been going on for over 50 years, since most of the factories shut down and shoppers left downtowns to go to the malls. ( I am originally from the Pittsburgh are so I saw this first hand).
People shouldn’t be so quick to blame the economy on any one administration.
Thank you Bruce for your forum and views, much of which I agree.
Fellow Atheist.
Jan P
@JAN PENDER
Re: “People shouldn’t be so quick to blame the economy on any one administration.”
Yes, they shouldn’t but they do. For example Mike Pence campaign ad has him touting $2.00 / gallon gas. Obviously, when we had $2.00 gas people weren’t driving because of the pandemic, but people (the vulgar masses who each get one vote) have short memories and selective memories. So the ad is as effective as it is dishonest.
People for the most part are too busy, too ignorant, or too stupid to dissect the reasons why the economy is doing what it is doing. That’s one reason we got Reagan and Republican dominance for the last 40 years. Reagan reaped the rainbow after the pain the federal reserve put on the Carter administration. Was it voodoo supply side economics or just the pendulum returning?
No love for the AL east either, the Red Sox sux, the only consolation being the Yankees are worse off, My daughter moved to Toronto, but the Jays have little hope of a playoff berth either.