Last Edited Business Blogs (3,355)

My cat was giant sized and terrorizing the community destroying houses and eating people. I kept chasing her saying "no Darcy, no Darcy, no Darcy"

From Reuters:

"Oct 2 (Reuters) - Defence spending will account for almost one third of Russia's total budget expenditure in 2024, the government's draft plans show, as Moscow diverts ever more resources towards prosecuting its war in Ukraine.

Russia also plans to ramp up state borrowing to help fund what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine in the coming years and is counting on a recovery in oil and gas revenues to pre-invasion levels to do so.

Spending under the "national defence" section of Russia's budget will total 10.78 trillion roubles ($109 billion) next year, or 29.4% of total planned expenditure of 36.66 trillion roubles, according to the finance ministry's budget documents that outline the government's fiscal plans for 2024-2026.

In 2021, the year before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, defence spending totalled 3.57 trillion roubles, 14.4% of total spending. In 2022, the share of defence spending rose to 17.7%, data on Russia's electronic budget page showed earlier this year.

Spending figures for 2022 were subsequently removed from the online budget portal. The most up-to-date data for 2023 was published as part of the finance ministry's 2024-26 budget plans.

The finance ministry has allocated 6.41 trillion roubles to defence in 2023, or 21.2% of total budget expenditure of 30.27 trillion roubles, but Finance Minister Anton Siluanov last week said total spending would be above plan at around 33.5 trillion roubles.

That may mean that defence spending will also be significantly higher than first envisaged.

Moscow doubled its target for defence spending in 2023 to 9.7 trillion roubles, Reuters reported exclusively in August, citing a government document.

"The budget's structure shows that the main emphasis is on ensuring our victory - the army, defence capability, armed forces, fighters - everything needed for the front, everything needed for victory is in the budget," Siluanov said last week.

"This is a big strain for the budget, not a small one, but it is our absolute priority."

EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE FREEZE
As defense spending in 2024 triples from pre-invasion levels, the share of spending on "national security", which covers funding for law enforcement agencies, is also rising, set to reach 9.2% in 2024, the documents showed.

To compensate for those increases, Moscow will effectively freeze spending on education and healthcare. The share of spending on "national economy", encompassing roads, infrastructure and construction, will decrease to 10.6% in 2024, the lowest share since 2011.

"Social policy", traditionally the leading spending area on state salaries, pensions and benefits, will account for less spending than defence at 7.73 trillion roubles in 2024, and with its lowest share of spending since 2011 of 21.4%.

Spending on those areas will nominally rise, but below inflation, meaning real-term cuts.

Chief Economist, Russia and CIS, at Renaissance Capital Sofya Donets said that taking defence and national security spending to almost 40% of all Russia's expenditure pending may have a strong short-term impact, but will contribute little to growth in the long-term due to their minimal impact on tax revenues.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov last week said increasing defence spending was "absolutely necessary" for the budget because Russia is living "in a state of hybrid war".

Russia argues that the West is fighting a hybrid war against it to sow discord and ultimately carve up its vast natural resources, allegations that Western leaders deny, saying Moscow's decision to invade Ukraine was unprovoked.

Ukraine vows to eject every last Russian soldier from its territory, and casts the invasion as an imperial-style land grab by Russia.

See the whole article at


The final budget has yet to be released.

At 2:20 Eastern Daylight Time today, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) will be conducting an test of the wireless emergency system over the cellphones and TV's across America. This way, when there's an actual emergency, you will be notified.

It will happen across time zones:
2:20 p.m. EDT
1:20 p.m. CDT
12:20 p.m. MDT
11:20 a.m. PDT
10:20 a.m. ADT
8:20 a.m. HST

When I was a kid, we had 'duck & cover' tests in school. This is the modern version.

Crouching down and putting your head between your legs is optional!






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My blog today is about vinyl LP's. It's been 40 years since digital CD's hit the market. I remember they professed it would be the kiss of death to vinyl LP's. CD's are the best and the worst in the music industry all in the same breath. When first released around 1982, people were forced to switch gears and buy new players. People weren't happy. They went through upgrades in 8-track tapes, cassettes and digital cassettes.

The good thing about CD's is you could fit more music on a CD than an LP. I knew a DJ who used to carry boxes and boxes of LP's to his gigs. When he switched to CD's it was only 2 cases.
Play a CD a thousand times and have no loss of quality. No scratching, no skipping. Physically, taking less space for storage, easy to send in the mail. Yet some people hated them.

CD's were easy to rip and download to a hard disk or digital storage. Now, DJ's only need a portable drive... or an iPhone with extended memory for hundreds of songs in their library.
Oh, if you don't have that special request, you can easily down load it from an online library through your cellphone data plan!

All these great things about CD's, but the 2 major drawbacks (that I can think of) is all the visual media is now compressed from 12" to 5" so albums selling merely because they have a cool looking cover has diminished and that warm analog sound of vinyl was replaced by a cold sterile digital representation.
Some people can hear the difference between the same music on an LP compared to a CD. For the most part, it's not important to 95% of the music listeners, so it is what it is.

That said, some artists actually have a small number of vinyl albums pressed and available for the music purists.

I know rap DJ's have CD digital turntables and emulate the 'scratch' sounds they popularized using old turntables.

I had forgotten about vinyl records for a while. Moving storage boxes last weekend I found my collection and oddly while walking through Walmart today, I found a rack of vinyl LP's as proof... vinyl ain't dead!

By definition, a Touron is a derogatory term combining the words "Tourist" with "Moron" to describe any person who, while on vacation, commits an act of pure stupidity.
There are several websites with videos documenting such activity.

Hot spring geysers can reach temperatures over 300 degrees Fahrenheit, but that doesn't stop some curious tourists from going over the safety railings to actually touch the boiling waters making them tourons...




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My story of the nightmare I have experienced since I met a man online in 2009. I didn't know he was very rich until 2016. I didn't know he was a narcissist until 2022. I suggest every one learn the signs of a narcissist because they are dangerous.

A few weeks ago someone commented on a forum post about the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners and suggested using Stevia as it was derived from natural plant sources. Perhaps, but I see an article that stated Erythritol, an ingredient in Stevia, linked to heart attack and stroke.

I stopped drinking fruit juice, Coke & Pepsi and sometimes take a diet drink mixed 50/50 with seltzer water or flavored for the slightly sweet taste. By doing that, I dropped a few pounds. It's difficult eliminating sugar from my diet. Walmart has some baked goods with no added sugar. Also, I've found only one company who has tomato sauce without added sugar and one company who has mayonnaise made without sugar.

Here's a link to the story about the ingredient Erythritol and while this blog is to call out the awareness of the possible dangers to consuming Stevia, it's not to be taken as medical advice.

Scott Hall, one of 19 defendants charged in the 2020 election interference case in Georgia, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors Friday, making him the first defendant in the case to do so.
Since his charges were a misdemeanor, his plea deal requires him to serve five years of probation, pay a fine of $5,000 and serve 200 hours of community service. A condition of the plea deal requires Hall to testify in any future proceedings.








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The saying when I was a school boy was told: Cheaters never prosper. As I got older, I found it to be the opposite. If you want to get ahead in business, cut corners and cheat.
Depending on how greedy you are there comes a time when you can no longer hide shady dealings.

This afternoon in the news, I read:

Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans.

The Trump Organization had been under investigation for more than a decade, but Trump while president was under a veil of protection. The veil is gone.

So it appears that cheaters can prosper until they get audited.
"Judge rules Trump inflated net worth, committed fraud, overvalued assets"


You knew this was coming... right?






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