December 1-2

 The calendar page has been turned and 2022 is 11/12 over. The year hasn't been as bad as the last two but also much like the last two. COVID is still here. The store shelves are still emptier than I can remember though we have usually found what we wanted and needed. We have simply continued a practice established early in the pandemic and bought multiples of our essentials. We still don't go out to eat as much as we did before the pandemic and aren't planning to go back to our pre-pandemic  pattern. Too many of our favorite restaurants either folded and didn't come back, hiked their prices beyond what we are willing to pay, or changed their menu to the point we don't enjoy the food as much. But we were slowing up on eating out before 2020 because we simply found it difficult to get our stomachs around the amount of food and didn't really want to bring the left overs home. We still follow the pattern set well before the pandemic of shopping early and avoiding crowds. After our shopping trip Tuesday we figure we won't have to do any major shopping until after New Years. So far we have been able to handle the increased prices though the inflation is worrying.

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I have seen a couple of headlines on this experiment. I am not surprised that it appears to be successful. Once upon a long time ago I worked at a firm that had a 4-day week and I loved it. I disliked a couple of things about that particular arrangement: we were paid by the hour with no adjustment for 32 hour week as opposed to 40 hour week and we got no sick pay which meant an even bigger hit if you were too sick to work. To really work the hourly pay should have been adjusted 20% higher and adequate sick pay should have been provided. The experiment did adjust the pay so most employees wanted to give up the four-day week and, since productivity increased by a large percentage, no companies plan to return to the five day schedule.

Oh, my--another day and another loss in court for The Former Guy. Unless his legal team appeals and the Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal (not likely) the Special Master in the Mar-a-lago documents case will be dismissed. The appeals court also took the judge to task for inserting herself into the case in the first place as well as for the order. Hee hee.

One of the commentators on this morning's shows said he really wanted the Republican Party to go back to being truly 'conservative" by which he meant having actually policies dealing with the economy, taxes and other such matters. The current Republican Party can't run on its policies because it has none. Remember when Mitch McConnell told a reporter who asked what the Republicans would do if they won back both house of Congress? His response was "wait and see." I also would like them to go back to expressed policies. And if they did have policies on the economy they would also have to deal with the effects of their policies on people--real people who probably aren't rich, white, male, or (kinda) Christian. Wouldn't that be a switch.