Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Strategic egg reserve

In this current battle royale climate for eggs, the trick is to get to Costco (or your grocer of choice) soon as it opens in the morning. You will then be among the lucky few to snag from the limited stock for the day. At least Costco now limits three items of eggs per customer. Hoarders and re-sellers can go die a furiously fiery death.

I honestly don’t think there is a need to hoard an egg supply. I eat two eggs a day for the protein gains (some would say that’s not nearly enough per day), and I’ve yet to run out of my supply. That’s with resupplying only every few weeks (when I go to Costco). These pictures of customers filling up entire carts with eggs: how big of a fridge have they got? Unless there comes an avian flu strain that kills off chickens into extinction, I think we’ll be alright.

It reminds me of the toilet paper panic back at the beginning of the pandemic. Do people expect to wipe their ass more often when they are stuck indoors? The only thing hoarding toilet paper saves you from is having to make a trip when you run out. And even then, there’s always the shower…

What’s hilarious about the egg shortage is that it is coinciding with a new President that ran on a platform of lowering grocery prices (was never going to happen, obviously). January 2025 inflation numbers are unexpectedly high, too. Maybe what America needs is a strategic egg reserve, like the strategic oil reserve. President Trump can increase the egg supply to level out the price shocks.

Forget breakthrough medical research - the Trump administration certainly has by freezing NIH funding; what we need is to research a new method for storing eggs for years on end whilst preserving initial quality. I personally think that’s a great idea.

Don't blame the system

This video popped up on my Youtube feed talking about how credit card companies are criminals for charging such high interest rates. But that’s a bit disingenuous. People aren’t forced to deal with credit card issuers. You absolutely do not need a credit card! Cold hard cash will always be king. There’s also the debit card too, if convenience is what you are after.

I’ve had and still have many credit cards, and never have I paid a penny of interest. (Good move by President Trump in directing the Treasury to stop minting pennies.) Credit cards are a fantastic financial tool, so long as the monthly balance gets paid in full. The issuers can charge the most usurious interest rate, and it wouldn’t affect me one iota. That’s how everyone should be using the cards. Visa and MasterCard more than make enough money on swipe fees.

It’s wrong to call something predatory when both parties came to an agreement. The customer borrows money from the credit card companies, with the promise to pay it back. Interest will be charged if payments are late. It’s not the issuer’s fault if the customer did not read the APR fine print. The issuer is not evil because the customer cannot fully pay the balance in a timely manner. It’s hugely infantilizing to obviate responsibility from fully grown adults.

Again, credit cards are not necessary to living. People did just fine before their invention. Whatever life emergency that people use the cards to cover should instead be covered by an emergency cash fund. Don’t have one? Eat only rice/beans/chicken/lentils (a completely nutritious meal for very cheap) until you’ve saved enough. Sorry, DoorDash is no longer in your vocabulary.

If you’re in credit card debt, it’s time to reevaluate your expectations of what is truly necessary in life. The Amazon habit is too difficult to quit? Better increase your income, then.

I know. Right to privilege jail. Right away.

Ready for some football

It is Super Bowl Sunday. (I think the NFL will send me a bill just for using that term.) An American tradition unlike any other. Except in other countries during their team’s matches in the World Cup. I’m sure the Argentinian television station responsible for broadcasting the World Cup final sold some significant advertisements in Argentina.

One day last week I forgot to bring my own coffee. It’s been awhile since I’ve purchased from Peet’s, and wow has the pricing gone up yet again. This particular franchise seem so embarrassed about the prices it’s charging that they are only displaying the price for medium size. How much for a large cup of vanilla soy latte? Spin the wheel to find out.

There’s been this age old battle between two camps. One side says buying the daily coffee from Starbucks is keeping you poor. The other side says (what was) $3 per day is but a drop in the ocean in the face of immense housing cost. There’s truth to both sides. In areas such as our San Francisco, you definitely cannot save your way towards buying a house by abolishing store-bought coffee.

On the other hand, many little things can indeed compound into significant sums. What makes the high inflation of the past years so pernicious is that it’s kind of death by a thousand cuts. It’s fine if only the grocery haul is (for example) 10% dearer. But when everything else went up also, it’s really easy to look at your monthly statements and wonder where the money’s gone. Five dollars extra here, five dollars extra there, five dollars extra everywhere.

And so it is with the Peet’s medium drip coffee I bought for nearly $4. The Keurig life is for me. I rather have the $1000 ($4 x 21 workdays in a month x 12 months) extra at the end of the year.

Dopamine nation

The WiFi has been spotty at work this week, so my iPhone is effectively useless during work hours. (There’s no cellular network in our dungeon of an office.) Be that as it may, I still find myself reaching for it to check stuff, even though there’s nothing that can be checked. It’s like unlocking your phone during a flight: you know there’s nothing new to see, yet reflexes that’s been honed for over a decade is difficult to pause.

I like to think of myself as a mindful person, but I guess I’m not immune to the smartphone dopamine addiction. Every second of downtime must be filled with brand new information. The latest sports news on ESPN, or the latest nihilistic banter on Reddit. Boredom has been extinct since the first iPhone introduction. We did it!

Everybody does it, though. If anything, you look like the weird one if your face isn’t plastered to your phone. Imagine waiting with a crowd for an elevator, and you’re the only one staring into space. The strongly introverted me is not ready to stand out like that.

A coworker’s car failed, so he’s been walking to work. The obvious perplexity is: he doesn’t live anywhere near walking distances from work. (Otherwise the car failing would have zero bearing.) Instead of replacing the broken car, he’s choosing to commute on foot for over an hour. I admire the grit, but I have to wonder at his financial situation if he can’t easily replace the broken twenty year old car. Our State government job doesn’t pay extravagantly, but it’s sufficiently middle-class.

I get it: needing to replace a suddenly out of commission car is a huge blow to the wallet. But that’s why you keep an emergency fund. You know, for emergencies. I can’t fathom the stress living with such thin financial margins. Yes, right to privileged jail, right away.

Let him cook

President Trump has enacted tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. Begun, the trade wars have. For what reason, it’s not immediately clear. For the general public, the salient thing is prices will be going up. If you’re looking to buy a car this year, pray that it isn’t manufactured in Canada or Mexico! You really think automakers are going to eat that tariff costs entirely?

The best thing to do right now is to let Trump cook (as the kids say these days). Whatever he’s got planned, be it Project 2025 or whatever, let him execute. The good ideas will work, and the bad ideas won’t. You have to allow people to directly feel the consequences. Otherwise the lesson never gets learned. I wonder how Trump-voting Federal employees are dealing with the freezes and return-to-office mandate. Your vote, your consequences…

What’s disgusting to see is people appealing to Democrats to do something. First of all, it’s extremely pointless to badger the minority party. Secondly, the party that has been pilloried for their empathy (the path to DEI is paved with very good empathic intentions) can’t then be asked to utilize that same empathy to save you. It’s like the woman who rejects the nice guy but yet wants the supportive benefits the nice guy provides.

You cannot have it both ways. Democrats ought to turn off their empathy muscles for the time being. They should not let their tendency to want to limit harm be used to save the same people that rejected it. Like the nice guy that refuses to leave, at some point you’re just allowing yourself to be abused.

I’m for letting winning Presidents to implement their agenda. The market (read: U.S. population) will determine whether they are good or bad. High inflation knocked out Biden/Harris; if Trump - due to the tariffs - causes another high inflation period, the Republican Party will surely be in a precarious position in the next election cycle.

Like winning the lottery

In our current national crisis of severe egg shortage, finding a two-dozen pack at Costco feels like winning the lotto.

It’s as if god himself wants me to continue having a constant egg supply. There I was at my local Costco on Saturday afternoon. It seems I had just missed a resupply of eggs: I saw many a cart with them, but when I got to the fridge section, there were no eggs to be found. That is, until I saw at the corner a fully intact two-dozen carton stacked underneath a few cartons with broken eggs. Pure luck is what that was. My two eggs a day habit shall not be interrupted. For now…

For all the joke about President Trump lowering produce prices - I really don’t care! Just let there be eggs for me to buy! I can absorb high groceries prices because I’m only buying for the singular me. (straight to privilege jail, right away.)

Of course, high grocery prices during the Biden years contributed a lot to Trump’s second ascendancy. You can throw statistics about how wages have kept up (or outpaced) with inflation - it doesn’t matter. Higher produce prices feel like a penalty, while a wage increase feels like something you’ve earned. It’s not a good feeling to get a raise, only for that money to get wiped out by inflation. Typically, a wage increase should mean more disposable income.

President Trump seems determined to curtail illegal immigration and deport illegal immigrants already on U.S. soil. Many of whom work in farming. When you diminish the labor supply, cost of goods go up. When cost of goods go up, so do prices. I’m skeptical that Americans would tolerate another inflationary shock to their grocery bills. Then again, it’s not like Trump can run for office again. For now…

Exploiters adjacent

On Shark Tank last evening, there was a woman peddling premium hiking socks for $24 a pair. I cannot wrap my mind around such extravagance. My modus operandi for socks is to buy in bulk at Costco (brand doesn’t matter). They get thrown away when holes inevitably develops. For a heavy wear item such as socks, I don’t see the utility of spending heavily. This isn’t a winter jacket that will last a lifetime kind of thing.

I’m sure premium wool socks feel fantastic. But who can afford them but millionaires or sock enthusiasts. It’s a luxury item for sure, not a must-have. At least with an expensive mattress one can make the argument the improvement on sleep is worth the money.

Maybe I’m just being a miserable miser. Half the stuff I see on Shark Tank, I can’t believe there are actually people who would spend money on them. In the same episode from yesterday, another entrepreneur was selling a metal trunk for people to store their keepsakes - for hundreds of dollars. A Sterilite plastic container from Target for magnitudes less money would have sufficed the same. I wonder: are we in so much consumer debt because of such frivolity?

Then again, the American economy would grind to a halt if a majority of the populace spend only on what’s truly necessary. DoorDash would not be worth billions because people understand it’s stupid to overpay menu prices plus fees and tip to have someone chauffeur a burrito to your home.

But please, by all means, spend. Debt spending is singlehandedly sustaining the r/churning subreddit. There aren’t thousands of dollars in bonus travel points to earn if on the slip side there aren’t customers to siphon heavy interest payments from. Those of us on the positive side are directly adjacent to the exploitation of people in severe credit card debt. That is, if your level of empathy causes you to regard credit card companies as exploiters.