Life moves on

Tariffs

This seemed like a good time to order a small, centrifugal pump. 1/2 hp. Suitable for transferring fluids from one IBC to another or as a booster pump. Made in China. Currently costing between $35 and $40 a unit.

 

Flexible agriculture

Southern Belle is unfamiliar with movable building technologies. Technologies like concrete piers, skids and even "chicken tractors"

Moving a building seems much more pleasant than shoveling chicken sh!t.

The base for a shed built on skids

Sometimes there are tax advantages to having "movable" buildings because they cannot be assessed as a permanent part of the property and therefore cannot be increase your property taxes.

D.O.G.E. and the Supreme Court

DOGE faced a reversal in the Supreme Court. According to the "news", the SC said that DOGE does not have the authority cancel contracts (i.e. the payment of) after the goods had been invoiced as "delivered". At least that is how my brain interpreted the news articles. It was spun as a failure for the Trump Administration because it limited the powers of DOGE.

At the risk of angering some of my readers, I think the Supreme Court decision was proper. I don't think the Government has any business coming in after-the-fact and disrupting business contracts where there is no crime and is no victim.

"Contracts" are "sacred" and legal decisions that weaken contracts or make them easy to break has a chilling effect on investment and the willingness of enterprises to explore new technologies.

As a historical reminder, the aggressive court rulings made during the City of Detroit's bankruptcy resulted in a rewriting of a hundred years of prior case law when the "rights" of the employees were given priority over the rights of the bond-holders. That resulted in much less enthusiasm regarding investors purchasing Muni bonds. 

In a similar way, the rights of the employees were also given priory over bond-holders during the GM bankruptcy hearings. Holders of GMAC Demand Notes were "stiffed" while hourly employee pensions were untouched. That ruling had a chilling effect on industry being able to raise funds in the bond market and undoubtedly accelerated the "Pension De-risking" trends of the 20-teens.

Viewed through this lens, the rulings of Judge Juan Merchan will be ruled null-and-void. His court "pried" in on private business transactions that both parties found totally satisfactory (the assessment of some collateral) and ruled it to be felony fraud.

The iggles are back in the nest

By the time you read this, both of my traveling children should be back in the mid-Michigan area. All matters of business (personal and otherwise) were satisfactorily concluded.

Interrupted sleep

 

My alarm clock phone blew-up with texts last night.

A Communist Wealth Redistribution Comrade crashed a stolen car into a cop-car and then fled the scene. One of my siblings lives in the neighborhood where this happened and three more live a bit east of there.

One of my sibs was following the chase with a police scanner app and was keeping the rest of us updated. His last reported sighting was in an old golf course east of where the vehicle crashed.

I would make snide comments about "living in the city" but those kinds of things happen every place there are people. That is why I have steel, exterior and bedroom doors and they have high-quality deadbolt locks. I have "hurricane film" over the windows. I also have security cameras and motion-activated, exterior lights and a German Shepherd sleeping in the living-room. It is not paranoia to make my house unattractive to home-invaders, nor is it a sign that I lack faith in God.

From the comments on yesterday's post

"We sort what we can use (some times there a half dozen jars of peanut butter between the three boxes )etc and pass the rest to a family with eight kids and are part of a home school network so nothing goes to waste!!" 

That was too good to leave buried at the bottom of a long list of great comments.

My perception of modern "home-schoolers" is that they are great at networking and sharing. And if they are home-schooling, then it is likely that they are a single-income family and money might be tight.