READING THE TEA LEAVES 8A

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE READING THE TEA LEAVES 8A There comes a point where we don't know what is going on, we don't have all the facts, or maybe not enough knowledge to fully understand the situation, and that makes us feel dumb. But if one has enough money, they may not have to suffer the consequences of their stupidity. Yes, someone once did argue that the rich also pay the consequences, but you and I both know that money can always lessen the suffering. A rich person may have to pay a five hundred dollar fine for excessive speeding but that will not take away his light bill money, or the grocery money, as it may for an average person. In broader terms, a recession will not cause a multimillionaire to lose sleep. If the stock market was to crash by say 80% a billionaire, or a hedge fund, like say Blackrock will not go belly up, a multimillionaire will still be making money. So do not assume that the rich guys will not do anything to crash the economy, they just may. To every action there is a reaction, it is mostly predictable, even if we don't care about what the outcome maybe. If you are anything but a multimillionaire you should care, if you work for the government, own a small business, work for a contractor, have a small farm, are on a pension, old, young, sick, not sick, what is coming will affect you, especially if you are a liberal or a conservative, especially if you are a Republican or Democrat, it will not matter, it will not be good. Not even if you are vaccinated or you are anti vaxx. Gun owner or anti the 2d. I'll explain shortly I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 20 DECEMBER 2024

READING THE TEA LEAVES 7B

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE READING THE TEA LEAVES 7B There is a a reason, but it depends upon what one understands. One cannot reason beyond their understanding, and understanding depends upon either life experiences or education, but then again both of these depend upon "learning", many don't ever learn. Complicated? Yes it is complicated! Life is complicated, this is exactly why, for millenia, philosophers and sages have tried to "explain" things. Tried to make us understand things. And charlatans too, the snake oil salesmen told us how their stuff was "beneficial", a cure all mind you, somethings never change. So here we are, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, looking for a cure all. A cure all, for the problems created by our own greed and selfishness. Our own personal hubris, we are ofcourse above everyone else, we are always right, the snake oil salesman tells us so. Yet, the problems persist, and we are left to wonder why? Every single cure we tried has failed, and they keep failing, we don't understand. I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 19 DECEMBER 2024

T'S ONLY WORDS! 1B

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE IT'S ONLY WORDS, 1B Earlier, yesterday in fact, I promised to write more, if you know me, I get sidetracked easily, I blame it on my ADHD, even though 72 years ago there was no such thing as that, but here I am, it is almost 3 am and I am sitting here on my bed, thinking about what to say. In part one of this article, I talked about how words, in and off themselves are totally meaningless. Sometimes it takes many words, pages, articles to state what a certain word actually means, and still it means only whatever the person hearing it or reading it thinks it means, and then again even that still depends upon that person's "understanding". As Clinton famously once said,  "it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is"? So many many years ago (17), I argued that we have no idea what "murder" is! It turned into a 6-10 page dissertation, with no exact conclusion that we cannot with any certainty define "murder". And still today, that is the case! Today, a New York jury found a person "not guilty" of any crime in the chokehold death of another, while someone else in New York was charged in the death of another. In both cases there are (millions of) people that feel that the person causing the "death" of another is either guilty of murder or not guilty of the "murder", doesn't matter which side you are on. My point here is, only, that if we, as a society, as a nation, cannot agree on the definition of an act as consequential as "murder" than how can we define anything with "certainty" ? So we are, constantly and continously left to bickering amongst ourselves. And the politicians and the pundits use the "words" against us to divide us, while they take our money and our peace. I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 10 NOVEMBER 2024

IT'S ONLY WORD'S! 1A

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE It's Only Word's! 1 Over the last many years, I have written about "words", and communication. What is any word? What does any single word even mean? It depends upon the context, depends upon where a particular word is placed in a sentence, among many other things, not the least of which being what the person seeing or receiving it actually themselves understands it to mean, that again depends upon that individuals understanding of the word and also what they perceive it to mean/ say. It not only depends upon the intentions of the person uttering the word but also on the knowledge, understanding, perceptions and yes their culture and their "prejudices". You and I could argue for days about what a particular word or phrase actually said and we could both also be "perfectly wrong". See what I mean? I will write more soon M. N. R. 05 DECEMBER 2024

READING THE TEA LEAVES 7A

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE READING THE TEA LEAVES 7A We can go back to talking about the human mind and thinking from 6A at a later time. A new government is about to take over on the 20th of January. Good thing that our worst fears didn't come into play. All the talk about the lefty mobs burning down the towns didn't come to fruition, certainly thankful for that. So far, as watch the possible cabinet take shape, the out look is not so rosy, but you really have to understand how the economy works. Stock market seems to be doing great, but interest rate dependent stocks not so much. Bonds are not doing well either. Companies that cater to the low income customers are tanking too, consumer goods and low end fast food companies are down. Gold is dropping like a rock, predicting higher interest rates. If government actually decides to cut spending, the first impact will be felt by low income citizens ( including those on Social Security). What does it all mean for the economy, since we care so much about it. Since our future depends on the "economy" we think anyway. It is not that simple at all. The future direction of prices, of food, housing, fuel jobs (employment), wages, healthcare, government services, defense and more all make up the "economy" and all are interconnected, not separated one from the others. If defense spending is cut, the first thing you will notice is the stagnation of contractor wages and employment cuts, that will lower the housing prices near contractor factory sites, and bases, lower employment in food service and grocery stores and so on. If the crop subsidies are reduced the prices of crops will go up to make up the difference, add that to the losses due to drought and farm labor shortage and you begin to understand why I said that food prices will double in the next two years, ( or maybe just 50% so as not to scare you). If we cut social security and Medicare the elderly will be hurt , as well as those that take care of them, nurse's aids, nursing homes, hospices and so on. As the markets have shown already, interest rates are not coming down or atleast as fast as we hoped for, and wishful thinking is not a strategy. I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 16 NOVEMBER 2024

READING THE TEA LEAVES 6A

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE READING THE TEA LEAVES 6A It is difficult to understand the world around us when, ourselves, don't know what we want. We confuse our desires with our needs and hurt ourselves. Sometimes we try to help others only to be accused of being selfish. Philosophers have already said that our desire to be helpful can be selfish, even to the extreme. We can even get our feelings (ego, really,) when our help is refused. And we get blamed for being selfish in reality. On the other hand though, it would be naive, even foolish, to think that many of those that pretend to be helpful have no ulterior motives, conmen and hustlers abound, everywhere and in all walks of life, snake oil salesmen, pimps, preachers, politicians and the police and the lawyers of all color. That is why we must be vigilant, must be careful, be informed and educated. Who we are, and what side we are on is an individual decision, it is based on our self knowledge, self awareness and our own motives. We can't ever say that our decisions are purely altruistic. I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 12 NOVEMBER 2024

READING THE TEA LEAVES 5!

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE READING THE TEA LEAVES 5! There is a song by Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows", a beautiful and haunting song, you should listen to it, again, or maybe for the first time. Or just Google the lyrics. We are all stars, we always wanted to be the favorite, or marry that quarterback or that cheerleader. We too wanted a "long stem rose". Back in my poetry days I wrote a poem, I called it "Yesterday", I'll post it again soon. We are convinced that we know everything about everything, and we also love to be on the winning side, it makes up for our other shortcomings. Don't take it personally, I am only making general statements. Life is complicated, it is hard to see how things actually work, look at the computer screen, or an airplane, how it works, the worker in China putting that computer together doesn't know anymore that I do as to how the thing works, but it does. What makes it go? You and I don't have to wonder or to understand, all we know is that it works. As does our body. Generally speaking, we eat, we sleep, we breathe, we don't have to worry. As I said previously, we can know all the history yet it is no help in predicting the future, future will get here and then become the past, whether we plan for it or we don't, it will happen even if are here or we are not. Sadly though, just as 1+2 equals 3, everytime, ( unless you happen to be Terrence Howard), history can guide us to what will the future hold if certain patterns of the past are followed. So when we say that "history repeats itself", what we mean is that certain results can be expected when the same certain patterns are followed. One of the reasons the democrats lost is that cater to every little whim of the outliers and shun the average American. They didn't actually do anything for the middle classes. Even though it is said that Biden was somehow great legislative genius but no one saw it. Yes, the democrats did pass the infrastructure bill, but at the state and city level the local politicians took the the credit for it all. Life is complicated, economy is complicated, and when we talk about a booming economy that does not help the average citizen, it doesn't matter. Because we really don't understand the economy, no one in DC explained how it was working, and they couldn't convince anyone, only thing that could have helped was an increase in the minimum wage. How? I'll explain. I WILL WRITE MORE SOON M. N. R. 09 NOVEMBER 2024