A Real Fix Needed

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Posted by in Healthcare

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We are told the United States has the very best medical system in the world. We don’t! It is the most expensive by any measure. Tens of millions are not only not covered by employer insurance, millions have none including Medicaid. Millions have no access to a doctor because they can’t afford it or live too far from any clinic or doctor’s office.

The administration is pushing vaccines from American companies when the best and closest to being utilized is the one from Oxford University and made by AstaZeneca, a French company. While others were testing on baboons and monkeys, Oxford was testing on hundreds of people. They started on tens of thousands around the world while our administration pushes making vaccines and skipping large number testing. Oxford’s produces anti-bodies and T-cells which may be permanent verses the American vaccines which have lower effectiveness and no T-cells requiring many shots. Trump says he (meaning tax money) will pay for the first one. We will pay for the rest.

More than two centuries ago Spain’s King Carlos learned a cow pox vaccination prevented small pox which killed hundreds of thousands of Europeans each year. He had all of his subjects in Spain quickly protected and using a novel system everyone; white, brown, or black, in his colonies were protected. Twenty orphans shipped across the Atlantic were infected on a two by two basis so the cow pox survived. It was repeated across the Pacific. Most of the world was free a century before we were declared free in 1949.

Most of the developed world beats us in cost and results. Many insurance companies are sending their insured to other countries for operations and recovery. It is cheaper, has better results, and is quicker.

It is time billionaires quit compromising our care!

Conventions Tell the Story

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Posted by in Conventions, Politics, Uncategorized

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Joe Gallas thinks I wrote an “ageist and racist” letter concerning the delegates to the major party conventions. Joe, the truth is I am not an anti-anyone. I have voted for delegates of both parties since Reagan’s first term and my comments are accurate. Joe, try looking at the audiences (delegates) of previous conventions. One is a rainbow and the other is mostly a monotone. One has a variety of ages and the other has a giant majority of AARP age attendees.

Both major parties have about the same number of attendees. The delegates pick up their own expenses to go to their party’s convention. The city that gets the Republican Convention can expect attendees to spend about 25 to 35% more than a Democrat Convention. The percentage comes from the search for cities to host the Democrat Convention in 2016. It was an amazing number that really opened my eyes.

This year will be almost 100% more since the Democrats will be virtual and the Republicans are in multiple venues. As I write this Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s campaign communications Director, is being interviewed. He is responding to questions about moving out of Charlotte and into Jacksonville.  Both communities are going to get some benefits versus the virtual one in Milwaukee.

Joe, don’t deny what you can see for yourself. I bet you haven’t been to a convention either. A few weeks ago a Republican strategist was on a Sunday morning news show saying the visuals of their conventions didn’t portray the idea of an inclusive party. I agree with him.

Why

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Why are people upset with Joliet’s Mayor for pushing someone who was yelling at him? The man must have been within arm’s length or pushing couldn’t have happened. The man had a right to protest but not in the Mayor’s or anyone else’s space.

Why do people want to destroy our history? We have done thousands of despicable things. We shouldn’t be trying to cover them up but should show the truth. We killed millions of Indians by giving them blankets infected with small pox and allowed white people to take houses and businesses of the ethnic Japanese we put in concentration camps in 1942. We need our sins known so we hope not to repeat them.

Why do we criticize our local, state, and federal government and then demand services when we need them? Southern states complain about the federal government, but when they get hit by a storm they are pleading for aid. People complain about having to pay taxes but they tried to get every dollar they could over the last few months.

Why do people so readily believe the stupidity, lies, and misinformation they see on the internet? Much of the wacky stuff is so obviously wrong – fact checking isn’t necessary. Our gullibility makes it easy for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and domestic groups to divide us.

Why do people vote for radicals when their ideas either have no chance getting passed or will be changed back when moderate, sensible people return to office. Trump has changed or overridden laws, procedures, and regulations put in force over the last six presidents. The next President will put most if not all the changes in the Oval Office trash can. Good riddance to most of them.

It is Still Manipulation

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Roger Kempa’s response to my opinion that Trump is manipulating the stock market is very thoughtful and fairly well researched. He cited the SEC Law prohibiting such action. What Roger doesn’t say is the law is based on those people making money from their actions. Mr. X buys a stock before his company releases information about a huge mineral find causing the stock to go up in price. Mr. X sells his stock and then shorts it. Shorting it means betting the stock will fall. He then lets the media know the report numbers have a decimal point misplaced and the stock falls. The paper trail puts Mr. X in jail.

President Eisenhower said we need autobahn type highways like Europe so we can move military equipment from coast-to-coast quickly. It was also a job creator. When he announced it the market rose with infrastructure related stocks raising the most. He manipulated the market but did not get any compensation for it. Therefore, no violation since it really happened. Even though many of his friends and others made money, he didn’t.

I do not know if Trump or his family makes money off his manipulations or if he does it for his own entertainment. Every time he says the Chinese are coming to the table to end the trade war, the market goes up. It goes back down when the Chinese say they aren’t aware of any such meeting proposal. One possibility is he wants to prop up the market to help him cater to those people who have investments in the stock market; the vast majority of those people is in Electronic Funds Transfers and mutual funds and is only looking at their end of the month report. His last statement was two days before the reports would have closed out for September. That is manipulation for a non-financial reason for him. It’s for his ego and to get him re-elected.

Mythomania

18 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by in Brain Disorders

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Mythomania is a psychological term for a habitual liar. It is a pathological defect causing a chronic behavior that is characterized by habitual lying and is consistent with dishonesty.

Another word for it is pseudologia fantastica. Both are a form of mental illness which causes the liar to seek ever increasing amounts of attention. With many people it is caused by low self-esteem, insecurity, social anxiety, or unresolved childhood abuse. If it is caused by a brain injury or dementia it could be the person could seem charming and even charismatic to cover their psychological pain. In other words they lie to make themselves more important.

Another aspect of this disorder is to lash out verbally or physically at anyone who punctures that aura of invincibility and superiority. They simply lie to make themselves more important and must lie more to cover previous lies.

As a person of this mental defect grows older more examinations are preformed to track its progression. Soon they will live in their own reality and their charisma draws others into their reality and lashing out at others becomes a constant need to keep their own fantasy.

The world knows of someone who has all the above behaviors and is worried about its rapid progression. World leaders know they must buy and curry favor to keep from being the object of his verbal abuse and tariffs. When such a person has one of the world’s most powerful militaries nobody knows what could happen.

What If Gore Had Won?

11 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by in Al Gore, Climate Change, Politics

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        Perhaps the Supreme Court’s decision to not allow the chads votes in Florida to be counted is quite possibly the most decisive and far-reaching vote they ever made. Other decisions can be changed and re-changed but that moment in History will never come again.

            Vice President Al Gore was a leader in the fight to reduce the causes of Climate Change here and around the world. Bush II’s people were repeatedly warned about Bin Laden and the Al-Queda but ignored them when they might have prevented the 9-11 attacks. Clinton and Gore had worked with Speaker Gingrich to cut over 350,000 government jobs over eight years and paid off almost all of the bonds. Gore had worked with Gingrich and the House and Senate budget committees to fix the Social Security System for at least 75 years. Gingrich lost support of his caucus after the Lewinsky scandal hit the fan. Gore was highly respected around the world including China and Russia.

            Granted we have had four Presidents since Gore lost the Electoral College – not the popular vote – with each doing their own thing. The most far-reaching laws Bush II and Trump did was to cut taxes and ramp up the National Debt to a disastrous amount.

            We currently have a President and a group of people telling Americans Climate Change is not real. They say it is just a liberal scheme to spend money ignoring the events they can see. Had Gore been elected we would be in the fore-front of trying to keep the CO2 emissions down and reducing the effects we are now seeing and how much worse they will get.

            It is disturbing to think how life would be different here and around the world.

A Day to Remember

06 Saturday Dec 2025

Posted by in Japan, Japan, Germany

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        Today is December 7, 2025. We call it a day of Remembrance because that day in 1941 is when the Japanese pulled us into the war by bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The reasons they did are both simple and complex. They are both economic and political.

            As in Europe the roots of World War II started in the early 1930s. With Japan it was the invasion of Manchuria on September 18, 1931 using a fabricated excuse as the reason. The full scale invasion on China started July 7, 1941. FDR thought he could get Japan to stop and pull out by cutting off our exports of oil and steel. It did not work because of the complex reasons.

            The major party in Japan was an ultra-nationalist group who thought Japan should be the dominant power in Asia and the Western Pacific. Their term for the Control of China, Philippines, South East Asia and all the islands was The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which would allow them to steal all the resources and enslave their peoples. The leader of the party finally got complete control of Japan’s Army and Government on October 18, 1941 through coercion and assassination of political opponents. The party saw Japan’s powerful army and navy as more than a match for an isolationist and weak United States. They thought if they declared war, devastated Pearl Harbor and captured Wake Island. FDR would sue for peace. Through a screw-up war was not declared until hours after the attack.

            Adding to the complexity was Japan, Germany and Italy signing the Triparte Pact. It was supposed to be a Mutual Defense Agreement. Germany thought it would keep the United States out of the war but Japan’s attack on us caused Hitler to declare war on the U.S. causing WWII. If Hitler had kept silent we would not have gone into the European War.

Why Is It?

05 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by in Truth

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Why is it that the President of the United States until Trump can not keep a gift over a few dollars in value and the Supreme Court Justices can? Why are Representatives allowed to make hundreds of thousands and even millions from their jobs?

Why is it people running for office are allowed to tell huge lies and even commit crimes while continuing to get massive support from voters?

Why is it newspapers are closing or being sold to people or companies that do not follow the principle of reporting the truth about local and national news? Why is it some TV networks are designed to spread lies and misinformation in order to con their viewers? Why is it social media is allowed to do the same thing here. Why is it people are so easily conned today?

Why is it people who never had kids or not in their current school system are paying thousands of dollars each year in Real Estate Taxes? Why is it the extremely wealthy people and companies pay lower income taxes than many poor people? Why is it a serviceman who retired from a base in California is taxed forever on his pension? Why is it a retiree with an Illinois Pension is never taxed on it by the state, even if they moved out? Why is it that people in Illinois can receive more than one state pension distribution?

Why has the American public become so divided? Why is it so many people work so hard to divide us and keep us divided? Why is it people just like to find or make up stories to destroy the American ideals and way of life? Why is it some people are so easily deceived?

Now Is The Time

29 Saturday Nov 2025

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In an usual twist of this blog I would like to talk about great places we have been and encourage readers to get in their vehicles and see them while they can. The “while they can” is two fold. One is Climate Change is in the process of destroying the sites and biodiversity. The other is mobility although I must say we were never the hikers that would have exposed us to greater views.

As a geographer and historian I recommend Civil War Battlefields. The best would be those around Chattanooga, Tennessee, Antietam, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg. I would like to go back to Gettysburg to ask the experts what would have happened if Meade had let Lee have the Ridge and then surrounded him without food, water, and ammunition. The war could have been over much earlier saving tens of thousands of lives. Go see the aquarium and butterfly collection in Chattanooga.

We have been in most of the National Parks in the lower forty-eight states so I recommend Yellowstone, Everglades, Big Bend, Zion, Arches, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Death Valley, Mount Rushmore (better before the modernizations were added.),Mesa Verde, and Carlsbad and Mammoth Caves. Those are the “Do Not Miss!

Other places are the Pink Coral State Park in Colorado (dust sized pink sand dunes), Roosevelt National Park for Buffalo (although the Elk and Buffalo Refuge in Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes is often better for real eye ball to eyeball viewing.) Great Sand Dune National Park, Pike’s Peak, Florida Keys, Rocket Launch, Museums in Washington DC, Williamsburg, House Tours in Natchez, Mississippi, Meter Crater in Arizona, the Real London Bridge at Lake Havasu, Okefenokee Swamp, Yosemite, Kings Mountain, Bad Lands, Monument Valley and the Air Force Museum in Dayton, and of course Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. You can go under the Falls in Tunnels.

We have never done a Bed and Breakfast because it is uncomfortable to be in someone else’s home, or staying even in a relative’s home much less a total stranger’s. Of the couple hundred of places we have stayed, we recommend the duplexes overlooking the Ohio River on the cliff in Cave-In-Rock Illinois State Park with a cafe across the lane, the Malanga in Mobile (Great story), Cabins in the Keys, in North Cabins of Fort Stock, Texas, The View in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah (second and third floors have terraces and Navajo Food Restaurant owned by the tribe).

We liked Zoos in Milwaukee, San Diego, Atlanta and Washington DC but seeing “caged”
animals became a turn off. A safari in Africa would have been nice. Oh, Yes, I forgot the Australia Zoo North of Brisbane (Allowed to pet the creatures).

Never wanted to be on a ship with a few thousand of my best friends so we have rafted the Yellowstone River during a very white water, boated the Bayous in Louisianan and the Okefenokee Swamp in a small guided tour boats. We have ferried the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, Puget Sound, Long Island to Groton, and most exciting was Swash Inlet to Ocracoke Island (we were the center car, with the rocking five feet up and down and four feet bow to stern – we were hugely lucky in our position), we took a small boat fishing Florida Bay for sharks (great jaws story), and whale sightseeing tour in Monterey Bay in California. Additionally a small ship to the Great Barrier Reef and a submarine in the reefs.

I like to drive in real mountains on exciting roads and we have been on big roads with several thousand foot drop offs with wrecked cars below. We were the first one through and early heavy snow was on one side of a mountain and dry on the other. We drove Pike’s Peak with 75 curves up and 75 down with a ranger checking flatlanders who rode their hot brakes, and hundreds of other miles that flatlanders would creep on. My million plus miles go from -270 feet to +14,110 feet in elevation.

My advice to all Americans is put down all your devices and go see America. Go to the Smokey Mountains before seeing the Rockies and Sierra Mountains. See our volcanoes and Western National and State Parks. Meet the locals in little cafes and over breakfast at your hotel. People love to talk about their home area. Stay away from franchise food and experience local cuisines. Ask the Hotel staff for ideas and not your device. Drive through big cities and stay in the small ones and towns. Look out the car windows and see life. Maybe be only inches from a bison or see a cougar running across the road, or stop for a herd of deer, elk, or antelope standing in the road. Maybe you might be lucky enough to see a black or grizzly bear or a moose. We did motor a small boat through alligators and shark infested water.

Memories and pictures will be enjoyed for the rest of your life. It is disappearing fast so spend the time and money now. Experience Real Life!

History Repeating … Again

24 Monday Nov 2025

Posted by in Adolph Hitler, Putin, Ukraine

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Few people know the importance of March 7, 1936. That was when Adolph Hitler ordered his army to invade the demilitarized area of the Rhineland. The area was a manufacturing area with large coal reserves allowing heavy equipment like tanks, ships and planes to be built. The army chiefs were afraid to do so with their tiny army because they would be crushed by the neighboring countries. Nothing happened telling Hitler he was free to do as he wanted so he started building up his military.

His next target was to the South of Germany. Being Austrian he invaded Austria on March 12, 1938 declaring it a Province of Germany. There was no response from the rest of the World and his agents had worked with the Austrian leaders to allow a peaceful takeover.

Next he wanted Czechoslovakia. The Czechs didn’t want to give him a part of their country. Hitler’s threats to invade created a fear of another war so an agreement was reached on September 30, 1938 between Germany. England. France and Italy giving him the part of Czechoslovakia he wanted. The Munich agreement negotiations did not involve any Czechs. March 12 he got thirty-eight percent of the country including its defensive positions. Later, on March 15, 1939 he invaded and took the rest with little resistance. He declared it a Special Province of Germany.

After signing the Munich Agreement Neville Chamberlain, England’s Prime Minister, declared “Peace In Our Time”. All the appeasing made Hitler think he could take the Eastern half of Poland (Stalin and Hitler had agreed to divide Poland) without any military response from the rest of Europe. He was wrong and war was declared by the allies on September 3, 1939.

Does Putin’s playbook sound just like Hitler’s. He has already incorporated parts or all of other countries so is Ukraine a fighting Czechoslovakia or will it be invading NATO and the Baltic countries causing the next war? He has plans for many countries?

History Repeats Itself

04 Saturday Oct 2025

Posted by in Palistine

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        As I write this I am very tired of hearing the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu throwing the Holocaust up as the reason for some criminal activity he has committed. Purposely killing tens of thousands of people living in Gaza with bombs and artillery is okay because they wanted another Jewish Holocaust and he is defending Jews. He allows right wing Israelis to kill West Bankers without any attempt to apprehend them. He has broken agreements on not building houses in the West Bank where the Palestinians live using the Holocaust and Jewish right to the land.

            According to the history of their people by Jewish Archeologists, they were a savage tribe that neither the Hittites nor the Egyptians want to mess with. Ramses I wanted to invade the people to the South and expand his empire to get resources. In order to protect his East Flank he hired that savage tribe to relocate there. They flourished with the yearly payments and not having to work on state projects like all Egyptians not in the army. In a matter of a few generations they quit being fighters and became lawyers, doctors, administrators, store keepers, etc. and worshipers of the Egyptian Gods. Some of the people thought their new life was against their heritage and persuaded the people to leave their lives of luxury. A good portion was forced by their new leaders to leave. They got out before the current Pharaoh could gather enough forces to go after them. They did not cross the Red Sea but the Reed Sea which was actually a tidal swamp. (Much of it is now the Suez Canal and Its infrastructure.) They left during low tide and the Pharaoh got caught during high tide. After they crossed over they split up for forty years to relearn their warrior ways. Their children absorbed the ways of their hosts. One family learned of a new God and its religion spread.

            Now comes the “It’s Our Land” Netanyahu uses in his pronouncements.  According to Jewish History they swarmed down the Golan Heights and slew every man, woman, child, and animal in what is now Northern Israel. As they expanded South their reputation caused tribe after tribe to leave or die. That’s how they got their land. Soon many of them were back into the professions who the Babylonians captured and took back to help grow their own intelligentsia group.     They were captive about fifty years before being returned along with their families.

The Tigris River’s yearly flood may have been the basis for Noah and the Flood scribes would later use. The river people used large family and animal sized square boats made with reed and tar during each year’s flood.

            Isn’t it interesting the war Netanyahu is waging against the Palestinians is very much like what those people did to the Tribes several millennia’s ago?

Times Have Changed

24 Wednesday Sep 2025

Posted by in Lies, Lies and Graft, President Trump

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        Times have changed since I was a little kid. If I told lies like Donald J. Trump does almost every day my Mother would have burned my butt with a belt. Today we elect people who lie, cheat, harass, demean, and threaten people and companies with dire things.

            Millions of Americans have come to believe half truths and lies as being factual. The constant barrage of these non-facts and lies has caused the majority of Americans to believe we have been screwed by all other countries, that climate change isn’t happening in spite of what we can see, and vaccinations are dangerous among other fictions.

            A few decades ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan made a statement which applies in today’s culture of lies. He said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts”. Today anyone with any sense can tell the President lies to cover the lies he has already said. He has built a fantasy world which is getting farther from reality every day. Bad things happen to anyone who goes against his reality.

            Trump has not just changed today’s reality he has ordered Federal, State and Local Museums and organizations to change history to suit his views. Slavery gave poor people good jobs and other rubbish. Of course, all reference to his losing an election or any of his crimes and lies about trying to overthrow the election must be removed or be closed.

            I saw a cabinet meeting where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “You’ll like these numbers Mr. President! The tariffs have produced over 300 million dollars on the way to your planned 500 million.” The next week the Customs Agency said they had collected 72 million. So where is the other 218 million?

            One other thing this administration has in common with other authoritarian governments is control of the news media. Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Un, and a few others mostly or completely control all media so lies and other misinformation can be dispensed. Putin killed or locked up reporters who didn’t follow his line. Trump threatens to stop mergers or pull licenses if they continue to print or televise the truth about him or ridicule him. A bad precedent was when ABC gave ten million to an entity under his control. Since then Trump has sued for billions to try to keep newspapers, magazines, and authors from dispensing the truth.

                An old saying is “The Truth is out there.” Unfortunately the truth is way out there and I fear it may not come back in my lifetime.

Dim Future

25 Monday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inactivity, Politics

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        The future is not bright because our elected officials of both parties are more concerned about how to make sure they are re-elected in the next election than the distant future.

            Everyone knows we are running full speed into a debt disaster yet they keep cutting taxes and exempting more and more income from individuals and businesses. The longer those sitting in the capitol building run up the debt, the harder it will be to fix it. Remember, the economy boomed during the President Clinton Presidency and that tax rate while paying down the debt. Congress should go back to that rate and do away with more corporate exemptions lobbyists paid for. The longer they worry about re-election, the more painful it will be to ninety-nine percent of us.

            Social Security and Medicare are not being replenished by today’s workers. Again Washington knows how to fix it and most of us know also. A quick change to push the problem farther away is to remove the salary cap so all incomes pay into it whether it’s a wage or an investment. Cap all payouts to anyone with an income of over $150,000. As more robots replace humans, the human cannot pay into Social Security so a solution would be for the company to continue the social Security payment for that replaced human.

            Only a duped fool cannot see global warming is here and getting worse every day. Today’s Congress is bent on increasing the country’s contribution of carbon dioxide and methane. It seems we read every day they have done something to peel back laws and regulations designed to try to save humanity from a very ugly future. The future is much worse than today.

            Congressional members need to be more concerned about us than keeping their chairs.

Youngsters and Inflation

16 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inflation

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        What is inflation and how does it affect people? I am 77 years old and I didn’t understand what it was until I was in my late twenties. A friend told me it was better to own a home than to rent because the value would go up and I could write off the interest on the mortgage. Then when building it I noticed a clipping under a glass countertop about how much a pair of tennis shoes would go up based on the inflation rate. The house we built has quadrupled in value plus some.

            In the early 1960s Dad was filling the Pick-up with $.27 a gallon of gasoline. When I got my GTO in 1967 I paid $.33. My first year at Murray State University the tuition had gone up a third to $120 a semester. My entire cost for a dorm room, five day meal ticket, and books was less than $1,000. My girl friend, now wife, and I drove the 125 miles back home on every other weekend for less than five bucks.

            The second year we didn’t get a full meal ticket and ate at restaurants for dinner. Several places had specials on certain days. Gino’s plate of spaghetti was less than a dollar, KFC on Sunday was a three piece for $.89, a big boy sandwich was large and it was still less than a dollar with a drink; fries and two drinks was just $.50 more. We became friends with the Thoroughbred Drive-in became we ate there several times a week. I could buy us 6 corn dogs or 7 hamburgers for a dollar. Fries and two drinks was $.50 more.

            My taxes for our house were $620 for the first few years. Now with our senior deductions we pay over 12 times more. My two year-old GTO cost $1,800 including taxes and today the taxes would equal that much for most two year-old ones.

            Yes, I really understand inflation now.