Friday, March 24, 2017

Signs the economy is bad: March 24, 2017 edition

Welcome to another edition of "Signs the Economy is Bad" here at The Itinerant Librarian. This is the semi-regular (as in when I have time and/or feel like doing it) feature where I scour the Internet in search of the oh so subtle hints that the economy is bad. Sure, pundits may say things are getting better, but what do they know? And to show not all is bad, once in a while we look at how good the uber rich have it.



 There are a lot of signs the economy is bad this week, so let's just get on with it.

  • Fixing potholes is hard, and it can be expensive. It is probably why so many roads in  the United States are falling apart. Omaha, Nebraska has a solution. Instead of fixing roads, they are just letting them go back to being gravel roads. Story via The New York Times.
  •  We have a some signs the economy is bad from the world of guns and those who love them:
    • Yes, there are liberal gun owners, and they would prefer not to buy their guns and ammo from "shops run by trigger-happy, extreme right-wing folks who sell target sheets shaped like Hillary Clinton and stickers that read 'Muslim Free Zone.'” Perfectly understandable, and it sounds like a new business opportunity for some enterprising gun seller who is not an extremist and happy to sell to liberals who are gun enthusiasts. Story via Boing Boing.
    • Still, many gun sellers and retailers are having the blues. Their industry along with  them spent all that time stirring fear that Obama was going to take their guns away. That never happened, and they even got their wish when the Pendejo In Chief won. So, why are they sad? Well, turns out the hysteria over guns going away is no longer there, and sales are down. Because fear and paranoia always  make for good gun sales. Oh well. Story via Mother Jones
    • How good was the business of fear and guns when Obama was in office? Well, it is estimated that Americans happily bought $17 billion dollars worth of ammunition during the Obama presidency. But with the Pendejo In Chief reassuring Americans their guns are safe, those happy days for the gun industry may be gone for a while. Story via The Washington Post.

As I often point out, not everyone does poorly in the bad economy. Let's have a look at how the uber rich are doing, and who may be doing well in the bad economy:

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