October 29

It has been dreary yesterday and today with rain and chilly temps. I got a couple of items pulled from the garden and some more on my list along with some rearranging of the containers. It hasn't been dry enough for long enough to completely dry out the cement so I will have a bit of sweeping to do hopefully before snow falls. None is in the forecast for the near future and we haven't had another frost yet. I want to see what seeds are in my ca    che but I don't think I will place any orders for the spring--just rely in the local nurseries for plants and the seeds on hand.

The little clinic we went to for our covid vaccination back in March just opened up appointments for the boosters early this week and we got our slots for yesterday afternoon. Since they had all three vaccine types we didn't have to think about mixing or matching. We just matched what we had already. Interesting--there was no delay for appointments and no packed waiting room this time. Another interesting change--we had less reaction to the vaccine. Last time we had a sore arm and a bit of heat at the injection site. This time less soreness and only for a couple of hours and no warmth at the site.

Annoyances:

1) Several pundits spent their time on the morning talk/news shows arguing that the Democrats should just accept the "bipartisan" infrastructure deal because "something is better than nothing." The whole process leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The original package was $6 trillion which was then shaved to $3.5 trillion and now shaved again to $1.85 trillion--maybe. I say that because the key senators haven't yet agreed. To be fair, the only part of the reconciliation bill already produced has been an "outline." And as they say the devil, and any angels there might be, is in the details of the language. Isn't 50% of something better than 100% of nothing, you ask. Well, Joe Manchin supposedly told Bernie Sanders that he would be quite comfortable with $0 for that bill. I have always said that the old notion of something being better depends on whether the something is distinguishable from nothing and the trajectory of the negotiations is tending towards the indistinguishable.

2) Another aspect of this process that offends me is the whole process that has pushed the so-called "hard" infrastructure into one bill while relegating the "soft" (human) aspects into another which some people are trying to whittle down to nothing. It seems to me that the bridges, roads, broadband, etc., that people need to work and function is much more important than the people, the individuals, that will use that hard infrastructure.

3) I have seen, more frequently than I like to think, an ad insisting that the proposed tax increases (which are now in limbo, I think) would cripple our businesses especially with respect to overseas competition (a.k.a. China). The spokesman insists that we can't let our politicians continue to devastate business as they did when "they" sent our manufacturing and its jobs overseas. Point: the biggest factor sending manufacturing and jobs beyond our borders was the drive for profits. Decisions on that came from the CEOs, CFOs, stockholders not the politicians. The worst you can say about the politicians was they did nothing to stop the process.

4) Talking about the supply chain situation Yves Smith asks "Will the Supply Chain Crisis Lead to More Onshoring?" Spoiler alert: not likely.