January 28, 29

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We had more snow yesterday. Not enough to blanket the car but enough to put a bit of a coat on the pavement. The temps have dropped also. Next week might be a repeat of this last week so we are planning to hibernate. We don't have to go anywhere until we run out of milk--probably late next week.

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A couple of days ago Mom had an email which was a petition addressed to our local electric provider to protest the rising electri c costs. At least two of our relatives have signed. A couple of the signers have written that they have experienced bills between $400 and $600 for a couple of the latest months. We have noticed a bit of an increase but not to that extent. However, it would seem that this area isn't alone. The Frugalite describes similar increases. The article has a link to a New England news post reporting that the energy companies predicted last September that a large (very large) increase in electric rates was coming. Evidently, that increase has come.

Charles Hugh Smith has a good post this morning. I have thought for some time that our economic/political/economic theories have become more like religious doctrines. My acerbic comment is that the pundits all think Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with some additional commandments: Thou Shalt Practice Unfettered Capitalism, Thou Shalt Not Deviate From The Foundational Document (i.e., the Constitution as certain true believers think the Founding Fathers intended it to be read.) However, any of the alternative "orthodoxies" are equally dogmatic.

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It is a nice slow Sunday morning--overcast but not frigid and not snowing at the moment. We didn't watch much news yesterday or Friday because of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Memphis clusterf**k. We certainly didn't want to watch replays of the beating murder by rogue cops. And we definitely didn't want to see it at the top of each hour every hour.

I mentioned the local petition concerning the fantastic increases in some electric bills. Today one of the bloggers I read mentioned her landlord increasing her rent by $600/month and her daughter being informed that her rent will go up by $500/month. Last year the state's laws limiting the amount a landlord could raise rents was cancelled opening things up for corporate landlords to put the screws to their tenants. She isn't going to renew and has decided to put most of her things in storage so she can travel a bit. At least she has choices. Others don't.