[Editor’s Note: This is the latest edition of Tick’s Notes and Tunes. It is a transcript of a fictional radio broadcast with direct links to the tunes being played. The transcript is in 3 parts.
(1.)The first is the first half of a transcript of the radio broadcast with tune links; (2.) The Editorial: (which normally deals with the subject in the title of this post or Trump, Immigration & Inflation; and (3.) The second half of the radio broadcast with tune links.
The purpose of this blog is to discuss, enlighten and educate the reader about relevant political, economic and business matters and to help maintain both a record and an appreciation for good old man-made music before AI makes man and real music a mere afterthought. ]
Good evenin’ folks
Stony here
Along with the rest of the crew
Here at DJ Ltd
To bring Yinz an evenin’ of
Toe tappin’ tunes and some
Good old fashioned fun
Our first artist really needs no introduction
According to the Oracle of Wiki
He’s sold over 130 million records
and had
Ten Billboard Number 1’s
plus 38 top 10 singles
Making him one of the biggest
Selling artists of all time.
He also wrote hits for other artists
…including the Monkees
A native of Brooklyn New York
He was also classmates in high school
With Barbara Streisand
He was also
A member of the
1960 NCAA men’s championship fencing team
But we’re here to listen
Not to hear ole Stony yap away
And so…here’s the one and only
Neil Diamond with Thank the Lord for the Night Time
https://youtu.be/cLj2BHly3t4?si=GM7–t0isSQHN_-5
Next up is an early 70’s Aussie rock band
That we found
Interestingly enough
While trying to find a jazz tune
According to Wilson McPhert:
This next band’s heyday was
1971 to 1972, during which
they released two critically acclaimed albums,
‘Daddy Who?’ and
‘Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll:Teenage Heaven’.
I was quite struck when I gave them a first listen as well
See what yinz think. Here’s
Daddy Cool doin’ Flash in My Head
https://youtu.be/MTqfq37-yu0?si=5IVDGNt0NA26UBov
I don’t know about you folks
but I like Daddy Cool’s sound.
Speaking of jazz, here’s a tune by a
Lady whose voice is great
Who can probably crank out a jazz tune herself
But this next tune ventures a little into soul
See if yinz agree…
Here’s a tune that everyone’s sure to like.
Joyce Williams with The First Thing I Do in the Morning
https://youtu.be/3-GbshGFtiY?si=AH2Bi99MDIZDMZUb
Wasn’t that great?
I don’t wanna get out of a great groove like that tune had
But
It’s time for our erudite station manager
Mister Rufus Coldwater
To lay a little heavy duty editorial on us
So what duya got for us Rufus?.
—————————-
Thanks Stony.
Hello Folks:
First let’s say that we’re glad that former President Trump wasn’t more seriously injured or killed in the shooting incident in Butler Pennsylvania. There’s no place for violence and assassination attempts in American politics ever. And, especially right now, with the country pretty much on edge anyway, the last thing we need is violence.
Be that as it may, our strong opinion is that regardless of what happened in Butler, voters need to focus on facts when deciding how to vote in November. Talk is cheap. Merely telling people what they want to hear and promising the world is what con men do. We all need to “get real” and try to resist the temptation to let our passions and prejudices get in the way of clear thinking.
Putting the critical issue of Trump’s record aside for a moment, many voters are likely to focus on two important issues like the southern border and inflation.
Trump and the Republicans, of course, have been highly critical of the way the Biden Administration has handled the immigration problem at the southern border with Mexico.
However last February (2024) after months of negotiation Democrats and Republican Congressional leaders were able to reach the type of compromise that contained the provisions that Republicans had long sought to stem the tide of illegal immigrants into this country. As such the Biden administration agreed to a bipartisan proposal that would have:
“…[E]nhanced border security by adding agents, deploying technology to detect smuggling, and hiring additional immigration judges to expedite asylum cases. It also proposed limiting asylum requests once daily migrant encounters exceeded 2,500.”
In addition:
“If the bipartisan proposal would have passed it would have added 1,500 more agents at the border, installed 100 machines to detect fentanyl smuggling, and hired 100 new immigration judges to reduce the wait time for asylum proceedings from five to seven years down to six months.” [https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2024/02/06/president-joe-biden-republicans-bipartisan-border-deal]
Despite the fact that this bipartisan proposal contained provisions that Republicans had long demanded, Trump had this to say about it:
“This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party,” Trump said. “It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans. Don’t be STUPID!!!” (See RYAN CHATELAIN’s article at: https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2024/02/06/president-joe-biden-republicans-bipartisan-border-deal)
Thus, because Trump opposed the bipartisan deal, it was killed and since February of this year the border has remained more porous than it would have if Trump hadn’t poisoned the deal to help himself get elected this November.
Thus, it would appear that Mr. Trump is not as interested in solving the southern border and immigration problem as he is in getting elected this November.
The southern border issue is incredibly complex simply because it involves not only federal law but also the inter-relationship between state, federal and international laws. . And, to make it even more complex, there is the issue of how much power the President has to act unilaterally without Congressional approval. (Doing so, is arguably very undemocratic and unconstitutional but feeling the heat and popular demand to “do something” the Biden Administration has recently shown more inclination to act even without Congressional approval—which we here at DJ Ltd would normally find to be quite objectionable, but can, in this instance, and especially given Trump’s apparent veto power with Republicans in Congress, we fully understand and sympathize with.
As such, and feeling a lot of public heat the Biden Administration has taken additional executive action since Trump nixed the bipartisan deal just noted. Folks who want to see how the Biden Administration has taken unilateral action to substantially reduce our Southern border problems should open and read the following link which describes what President Biden did just last month: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/06/04/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-new-actions-to-secure-the-border/
Then there’s the very important inflation issue. This is clearly the biggest pocketbook issue voters are currently facing. And it is one that Presidents generally cannot do much about once inflationary prices have been locked in because President’s cannot unilaterally require employers to pay their workers higher wages to catch them up with past price hikes. That’s up to employers.
Moreover, as we’ve mentioned before, the war in Ukraine and Covid played havoc with supply chains for oil, wheat and other goods which in turn had inflationary effects. Housing costs have risen significantly. Time won’t permit a proper analysis of all of inflations causes here because there are many and the issue is complex.
Regardless, however, Trump and the Republicans having been putting the blame for inflation and the high cost of living on the Biden Administration.
Given all of this, we here at DJ Ltd took it upon ourselves to do our own comparison of the economic performances of the Trump and Biden Administrations. Below are the links to our results which are mixed but much more favorable to the Biden Administration than Trump and the Republicans would have everyone believe.
https://reasonandbalance.com/election-2024-economic-data/
https://reasonandbalance.com/economic-comparison-trump-v-biden/
More importantly, let’s consider a major factor in determining the price of everything from mortgages to car payments. And that’s interest rates.
Rebecca Picciotto of CNBC reported on June 25, 2024 as follows (see: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/25/nobel-prize-economists-warn-trump-inflation.html)
“Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a joint letter Tuesday warning of what they see as economic risks if former President Donald Trump were to serve a second term, including reheated inflation.
[The joint letter said in part:]
“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s,” the economists wrote. Axios was first to report the letter.
[Editor’s Note: In addition, there is no question but that if Trump imposes tariffs on imported goods, like he has constantly advocated, those tariff costs will boost the prices of all imported goods thus fueling more inflation.]
[Thus, concluded the Nobel winning economists]
“There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.”
[ Moreover, to fight high living costs, ] Trump has […also …]proposed ….pressuring the independent Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates.”
Nevertheless, as Nicholas Jasinksi of Barron’s (see https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-powell-fed-rate-cuts-election-125e8255 ) (07-17-24) wrote:
Donald Trump warned the Federal Reserve not to lower interest rates before the November election and said he wouldn’t seek to push Jerome Powell out as Fed chair before his term ends in 2026. Trump is quoted as saying:
“I would let him serve it out, especially if I thought he was doing the right thing,” [ see Bloomberg Businessweek in June, in an interview published on Tuesday].
Trump told the publication that cutting interest rates before the November election would boost the economy and President Joe Biden’s odds of victory. “It’s something that they know they shouldn’t be doing,” Trump said of the Fed.
In short, Mr. Trump doesn’t want Congress, the Fed or the President to do anything that he himself is in favor of, if doing so reduces his chances of winning the election in November.
In short, the record clearly shows that Trump has actually worked against both sealing the southern border, and in allowing the Fed to lower interest rates all because those events, if they occurred now, would reduce the chance that he will be elected President this November.
In short, Trump doesn’t care as much as he says he does about inflation and the Southern border. The record and his own statements clearly show that he is much more worried about himself than in the welfare of the Nation. Moreover, a lot of Nobel winning economists think Trump’s economic proposals are inferior and more highly inflationary than the policies that the Biden Administration has been pursuing. And finally, based on our analysis (see our website’s analysis at https://reasonandbalance.com/election-2024-economic-data/ and at https://reasonandbalance.com/economic-comparison-trump-v-biden/) Biden has gotten inflation under control and is, in fact, moving more aggressively on matters affecting our Southern border despite Republican Trump-inspired resistance.
This is Rufus Coldwater. Thanks for listening.
————————————————————————-
Okay thanks Rufus
Well, our Executive Assistant
Producer of Everything…
Has done her normal
Excellent job yet again.
I’m speaking of Suzi of course
And She’s gone down to the garage
once again and
pushed around some grungy damp boxes
filled with old 45s….records that is
And fished us out our next tune
And frankly,
I can’t tell from the jacket much about this tune
But I see here on the 45 itself that
The composers of this next tune are
Dave Olson and James Packett
and the band is Les Barons
I guess in English that’s The Barons
In any event,
let’s just get down and enjoy
Les (The) Barons with Now You’re Mine
https://youtu.be/PPHBACCBTH4?si=cf8tNDQeKATJvocc
Yep, lil Suzi sure does have good taste in tunes
That was a great way to kick off the 2d half tonight
Alright next up we have
A true country legend
Originally from Ohio
A guy who pined away
To get out of Detroit City
And back home
In probably his most famous legendary tune
But Who
according to the Oracle of Wiki
Only had one #1 country hit
And it’s our next tune
Here’s
Bobby Bare with Marie Laveau
https://youtu.be/XBt845vjzq0?si=oS7xlWBmmQeYm6ZJ
Okay, it’s getting late and that means
It’s time for our cleanup act tonight
And we’re lookin’ forward
With great anticipation
to our last tune tonight
According to the band’s own website at
Sloanmusic.com
“In 1991 bassist and vocalist Chris Murphy
and drummer Andrew Scott met
while studying at the
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design,
and with the addition of Patrick Pentland
on guitar and vocals and Jay Ferguson
on guitar, formed Sloan….
.[their second album “Twice Removed”
was named “The Best Canadian Album
of All Time” by one poll and revered by many other.”
And so let’s quit talkin’ and give these guys a listen
Here’s….
Sloan with Money City Maniacs
https://youtu.be/WXh81JTt0ng?si=-df8vfDH63UNK5_-
Well, that’s it
There ain’t no more
for tonight at least
I sure do hope that you folks
Enjoyed tonight’s show
as much as I did.
So for Suzi, Buck, GURU
And Rufus
And all the other folks
…and critters
here at station DJ Ltd
Goodnight
And don’t ever let
Those gosh darned
nasty bed bugs Bite.
————————————————-
END NOTES:
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