We often talk high finance or economics or even look into the activities or habits of people that we think we can learn from but today I would like to veer from the straight and narrow to discuss something that I didn’t expect needing to talk about- safety. I can’t believe that we have to talk about this in 2024 America, but the sky is the limit. Speaking of the sky, a friendly neighbor in suburban Portland with a myriad of homeless nearby no doubt had an airplane door fall into their backyard. This isn’t a Breaking Bad scene, although quite similar, no no no this is coming from a company that had 2 airline crashes in the last few years that should be on its best behavior. That’s right folks, safety is on my mind today and it is manifesting itself in ways that I thought were too idiotic not to have to point out.
When I think about debacles in the history of flight I think of Amelia Earhart or I think of Rhode Islander Lloyd Christmas, referring to his poor friend’s pet bird Petey, “Our pets heads are falling off.” If you ever saw that poor bird with a duct taped head, you might be confused with what Boeing seems to be doing. If you are flying Boeing you now have to worry about their sides falling off! That’s right, a Boeing 737-9 Max jetliner being flown by Alaska Airlines had a blowout leaving a gaping hole in the airplane. The Associated Press reports that a window blowout occurred at about 16,000 feet in the Alaska Airlines flight forcing an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon. The last time I saw a blowout in the side of an airplane was the movie US Marshalls. This is from the same company that had all its Max 8 and Max 9 planes grounded for almost two years after two planes crashed killing almost 350 people. This aircraft was two months old so be careful out there flyers.
“The union representing flight attendants at 19 airlines, including Alaska Airlines, commended the crew for keeping passengers safe.
“Flight Attendants are trained for emergencies, and we work every flight for aviation safety first and foremost,” the Association of Flight Attendants said in a statement Saturday.”
Thank you Sky-Karens for that self-serving message, but your idea of safe and mine differ slightly. I prefer to fly in airplanes without holes in the fuselage so the union I would really like to hear from is the one responsible for the plane’s side falling off! Thankfully no one was sucked out of the plane or seriously injured. I think from a PR point of view I think we have shown this to the Sky Karens as an example of what not to do.
One little boy’s shirt was sucked off and out the hole of the aircraft. I sincerely hope he didn’t identify as a girl or liberal Portland Police will probably charge him with indecent exposure upon landing. I also read that the door ejected. I’m sorry, stop with the word salads, pilots are ejected from aircraft, when the doors fall off that is called something else, like a near catastrophe in this case. It is easy to mock or point out flaws when someone has an accident, but when United started checking its grounded aircraft it found multiple door plug’s lower hinge bracket with screws not screwed all the way in. It seems like someone was screwing the pooch instead of the hinge bracket. Welcome to America 2024.
Moving from one Lloyd to another, it seems that the US Secretary of Defense was hospitalized at Walter Reed hospital for four days and nobody knew about it. Now much to you the reader’s chagrin, I am not going to fly off the handle about this unlike Joe Buccino writing for RealClearWire via ZeroHedge. “The news that the U.S. Department of Defense failed to inform the American public that its Secretary of Defense was hospitalized in Walter Reed for four days represents a stunning breach of transparency standards. It is also a measure of reputational damage from which Secretary Lloyd Austin will never recover. He must be forced to resign… Lloyd Austin cannot recover from this breach of trust. In fact, he cannot be trusted any longer. If he wants to keep his hospital visits private, he should be allowed to do so – as a private citizen.” Joe Buccino is listed as a retired US Army Colonel public affairs officer and communications director. This breach left Joe here clutching his grandmother’s pearls. It basically leaves his entire life’s work as fairly optional now doesn’t it, but it gets better.
Tara Copp and Lolita Baldor write a timeline of events for the AP including that The Pentagon Press Association issues an immediate statement underscoring the seriousness of the lapse: “The public has a right to know when U.S. Cabinet members are hospitalized, under anesthesia or when duties are delegated as the result of any medical procedure.” I would say that they have the same dilemma as Joe. We now know that Austin is being treated for prostrate cancer. He is a private individual and was keeping his health condition under wraps. He transferred some operational duties to his deputy Kathleen Hicks when he was under anesthesia during a minimally invasive procedure on Dec 22nd and days later when advised by physicians after suffering complications on Jan 1. Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico, another item that infuriated Joe. I’m not sure what we are enraged about Austin doing here yet, oh wait, he didn’t inform the media and give them a story. The media is furious, and I am furious with the media for being so damn self-righteous. The egos that think they must be given transparency. They only make the lives of the soldiers more difficult, and yet they are calling for them to resign. The military’s job is tough enough without the media constantly trying to entrap them into policy faux pas to generate clicks and mentions. My suggestion is that you reenlist if you want insider knowledge Joe or in the case of the Pentagon Press get a life. On their own website their first goal is engaging the DOD in questions of access. My answer is you shall have none. I have no desire to see how a sausage is made in the plant and how the defense department provides safety for its citizens is not my interest only that they do. We need less transparency with the media and more taking care of business. Let’s hope and pray for Lloyd Austin to have a quick and healthy recovery.
Now that my little rant about the outraged media not being told anything, showing how inconsequential their little press briefings are, I do have a serious problem with this. It seems that Joe Biden wasn’t informed of this until Jan. 4. We conducted bombings on Iraq between his first procedure Dec 22-23rd and Jan 4 including on the 4th. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs knew on Jan 2, Austin’s senior staff knew on Jan. 2, and the Pentagon Press Secretary knew on Jan. 2, but nobody informed the White House. Why? The man in charge of the country isn’t really in charge of the country. That’s why. We are running on autopilot, and I don’t think that is a bad thing trust me, but it should be concerning to the citizens of the country when their commander in chief is so inconsequential that the Pentagon doesn’t tell him that the Secretary of Defense has relinquished some of his powers and has been in and out of the hospital. Several congressional Republicans have called on him to resign. They with the $2 trillion deficit. Welcome to America 2024.
We mostly speak about safety on this site with regard to your investments and an economy in mind, but I can assure you that when your real safety is compromised, your 60/40 portfolio will be the last thing on your mind. We have an open southern border, and that is allowing a massive inflow of foreigners into the country. I have talked about how I don’t blame them for coming to a country of handouts in comparison to staying in their countries. We put them up in hotels and give them money and a cell phone, but that is bad policy, and I don’t want to get into that. We should acknowledge that there are lots of them, thousands and thousands of them. Does this country not realize we are at war right now with at least three different enemies? Russia via Ukraine, the Arab factions opposing the Israeli Gaza war, and the financial war we are fighting with China. As a safety concern, I find an open border to be a naïve way to approach this situation.
Aleks Phillips writing for Newsweek seems to agree and writes “The Republican Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee has said that it was “very likely” that “military personnel” were being inserted into the United States by China by crossing the southern land border.” And It comes after Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, told the House Armed Services Committee in March that China, along with Russia, was now posing “more dangerous challenges to the safety and security of the U.S. homeland.” Do we not remember the famous Chinese balloon incident?
These are concerning and we know what happened on Jan. 6. Well, we don’t know totally what happened now do we? It was an insurrection, a kerfluffle, a staged photo op, a non-peaceful transfer of power, a rich poor loser’s tantrum, and probably everything in between, but what we do know it was, was embarrassing. We also know that it was nothing in comparison to what happened in Ecuador on the Jan 9th, when according to Chris Matthews at the daily mail “Ecuador has erupted into a ‘civil war’ with cartel thugs after the president ordered the army onto the streets and declared a state of ‘internal armed conflict’. Crazed criminals have rampaged through the South American country’s cities today after President Daniel Noboa, 36, ordered a state of emergency. Hooded gangsters seized a state TV news studio today, while a university was attacked, and jail guards reportedly executed by prisoners.”
Remember in August when we wrote about the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio in Ecuador? Well, these cartel thugs also have an open path through our borders. The drugs that pass through the border makes it to our cities that have turned into zombie apocalypses. On October 7th Hamas invaded Israel and went town to town with guns and knives killing innocent civilians and taking hostages. There was a border wall that they had to break down and fly their lawnmower mobiles over. In America, if something were to happen our own silly government would have given them a sandwich and a map.
We always say we will never forget days that will live in infamy like Dec 7, 1941 or Sep 11, 2001, but we certainly forget why they are important. They were days when our apathy got our citizens killed because we were surprised. Don’t be surprised, be active in your own well-being. Arm yourself- spray is ok but guns are better. More importantly, be on the lookout and if something doesn’t seem right pay attention and report it. Don’t get lost in your phone in public places, it could make you a victim. Lastly, there are bills in congress that are trying to supply aid to Ukraine and Israel again and although I am against sending our tax dollars to fight someone else’s wars at least they currently have strings attached to them which would secure our southern border. Hopefully some common sense prevails. This situation is like letting the Japanese just tour our boats instead of flying bomber raids and letting the Saudi hijackers just walk up the Trade Centers with bombs instead of hijacking airplanes. By that logic and if that would have happened at least I could have kept my shoes on at the airport. This is the type of logic that our border policy is making, none. Welcome to America 2024.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
The Dow Jones finished trading at ….37,525
The 10-year Treasury bond is at …4.019%
The price of Brent Crude is …77.94
The price of gold is …2,036
The price of silver is …23.17
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.