Happy Valentine's Day


Posted On: Monday - February 14th 2022 6:42PM MST
In Topics: 
  Poetic Stupidity  Inflation  Holiday from Stupidity



Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
19.22?
"Shit's gone up..."


Wait, isn't that a Haiku? Sorta? Yeah, we've got a Poetic Stupidity topic key, so why not?

I did suggest to my wife that I get roses tomorrow when the go on sale. Yeah, she was glad that was just a joke...

Anyway, really, that's the only answer you're gonna get if you question prices. I hadn't looked at the natural gas bill very closely for the coldest month here, January. It is the highest bill we've ever gotten by far. I knew we'd had the heat on higher than usual, but then again, there was a warm week and a half at least. Upon inspection, I could see our usage (in compressed ft3, hence "therms") was only up by 5%. It was the price per therm that was the big change. Natural Gas - up 28%! Electricity, up "only" 6.5%.

House insurance is up, but I don't have the record on me from previous years that is separate from some of the car insurance payments. However, I have one datapoint clear in my head. For the same house, 30 years back, it was $300 annually. We are in the mid-$800's now. I get 3.5% annual inflation compounded. OK, that's not terrible, but it's not the BLS 1 - 2% we've been FED (pun intended) for many years. It takes a whole 20 years to lose 1/2 your money. You'll hardly notice it.

Wait, but this house has gone up in price too, so it's all good, right? I guess. It's everything. "Shit's gone up." No it's really: "$18.99 a pound for steak? Honey, the dollar has gotten more worthless again."

The Peak Stupidity readers are a bright and experienced crowd, so the following is probably not necessary, and but our lawyers insisted we not give financial advice .... for free . [OK, you're on your own! - PS Legal]:

Remember how much any of your savings in US currency are being steadily stolen. Put the savings from your life of labor in something real - real estate, precious metals, foreign currency, whatever, I don't know. OK, this is really advice to myself. I DID see this coming but didn't really act early enough, as a prepper should.*

No reason we can't grow our own roses, right? Chocolates are a bit harder.


* No, I didn't do it ALL wrong, but I somehow thought things would move a little more slowly.

Comments:
Adam Smith
Wednesday - February 16th 2022 10:14AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Moderator,

Mrs. Smith prefers her pocket watches without chains, so you can have the chain in those ebay photos, if you like.
(I might even have another around here somewhere...)

So, the other day she asked if I had some tweezers, and I did, in this box of watch tools I have been collecting to someday fix the broken pocket watches we have. So I got the box out to get the tweezers for the lovely Mrs. Smith and started tinkering with the broken molnija watches (3602 movements) I bought to learn how pocket watches work. To my surprise two of them worked. I guess sitting in a box with watch tools for a few years fixed them (as if by osmosis or something). (I did have to realign the hands on one of them.) A third broken watch I got working again just by lightly blowing some air into the movement. I guess it had some dust or something in it.(?)

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DRwAAOSw9N1VrqFj/s-l500.jpg

I still have a couple broken pocket watches that have been dropped and don't run properly. I've watched a few videos on youtube about fixing them, but the parts are really small, and it's still a little foreign to me. But I do find the mechanics fascinating.

I have one that I have to take apart to get the winding stem back in, and two that I believe might have broken balance staffs because they run but stop if you place them on their back. (The internet tells me this is a sure sign of a broken balance staff and it's common when they have been dropped.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJGl4jBT-Gg

Maybe one day I'll figure out how to fix them.(?)

The Alarmist
Wednesday - February 16th 2022 8:45AM MST
PS

My wife wanted tulips on V-Day ... guess what you cannot find on V-Day. She had to settle for roses.
Moderator
Tuesday - February 15th 2022 7:31PM MST
PS: That sounds like a great way to handle, it, Mr. Smith. For a few years my wife noted that the kind of flowers I brought her were for funerals, so I went back to the old standard. She's not quite romantic enough to see that picking one's own flowers says something.

I like pocket watches. A friend's brother used to fix and deal in those things. I bought one, but it lasted only a week or two. I may get another, on a nice chain. I felt like a guy in an old Western movie, pulling it out of my pocket to check the time, or how long before the 3:05 to Yuma is due in. Cool!

Then again, as much as I've let my phone get beat all to hell lately, maybe I should mount it on a gold chain attached to my pants.
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 15th 2022 12:11PM MST
PS: Happy Valentine's Day...

https://i.ibb.co/KNxqdDT/valentine.jpg

Mrs. Smith prefers her flowers to be not store bought, so I cut 51 Daffodils for her...

https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/hort/files/2016/02/sunny_daffodils-2.jpg

She also collects Zuni fetishes...

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/uMMAAOSwiyhhg2bo/s-l500.jpg

They've been holding their value better than cash and I doubt the people of “government” will ever try to confiscate them.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/JYkAAOSw1dthy7bW/s-l500.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zsQAAOSwJTthy7bS/s-l500.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fYoAAOSwKdRhzcbq/s-l500.jpg

Not that mechanical pocket watches should be used as a hedge against inflation, but they too have been holding their value.

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