Politics

[Hunt anything]

It's pretty obvious how divide we are as a country. It interesting, if no one asked if you are a D or a R we would have more common ground than most would want to admit. Kind of like the media bring up white and black, if you ignore color more common ground than not.

We choose to allow the division, until we change it. It will continue to happen. Not sure what will cause a change or if it is even possible at this point.

I'm not the oldest on the forum, I'm not the youngest either. It's sad to witness how far negatively we have come as a country. It's been said here before 9/11 was the last time we came together as a nation in my mind. Even Covid caused more division. Not sure what if anything can turn this around. With today's social media and people's mindset...real conversation will be hard to have.

Maybe I have the wrong read on things.

This seems to be a pretty good read on the reality that is life and attitudes in the USA Today.

 

[Hunt anything]

My priority is to be able to kill my baby when I find it an inconvenience. Yeah, that makes sense.

I know “mistakes happen” but a lot of these woman put more effort into how they can go about getting an abortion than taking 10 seconds to take measures to prevent a unwanted pregnancy. Kinda hard for my simple country mind to get a grip on.

 

[Mekaniks]

It feels as if the whole country is waiting on the results of a pregnancy test.
We either get a healthy baby boy or the daughter of Satan…

Or the results of an STD test....

 

[Red Leg]

I know “mistakes happen” but a lot of these woman put more effort into how they can go about getting an abortion than taking 10 seconds to take measures to prevent a unwanted pregnancy. Kinda hard for my simple country mind to get a grip on.

In fairness, I would offer that the dude in question likely wasn't a lot of help.

 

[Red Leg]

The betting public seems to have again reversed itself. After the Iowa outlier, things swung the democrat way for about 24 hours. It is now trending solidly Trump again. This is not a scientific poll, but it does rather accurately represent a perception snapshot in time.

Polymarket - 2024 Presidential Election Predictions

2024 Presidential Election Predictions. Trust markets, not presidential polls. Live and accurate forecasts by the world's largest prediction market.

polymarket.com

 

[wesheltonj]

Atlas has Trump with the win. Mark Helprin a very D person has Trump with three paths to victory and Harris with one. Hopefully these guys are right

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

A lot of new municipal projects are being funded by the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law. You are right about normal costs going up though. We have increased our maintenance contract costs by about 30% cumulatively in the last 4 years for municipal clients. That is just labor, material costs are on a cost plus basis and some have stayed pretty much the same and some has gone up.

It is very different doing business in the third world. In our circumstance there is no borrowing, no insurance (they always squirm out), and no possibility of a government contract. It takes it back to a very simple business dynamic - just get your head down, make a product as well as you can, and sell it, anywhere, everywhere. Keep finding markets, keep finding momentum. Thank God for the high gold price which is buoying our gold equipment line.
It is a very clean sort of business model, no frills, rather like driving a Land Rover. No aircon, but nothing much to go wrong.
But as to retirement, there is no pension either. There is either a succession plan with a monthly provision for you, or sell the business and draw down. The greatest reward you get from a life of building a business is satisfaction.