This May The Biggest National Story Of The Week -- California Deficit -- May 8, 2020

I wasn't going to post this (again). I either posted it earlier or at least provided a link to a similar story, but this article has staggering numbers.

I had to put it in context with comments from the governor of New York who said that New York state had a deficit of $13 billion (which, of course, is growing.

So, using New York's deficit as a marker, look at this: California's $21 billion surplus from one year ago has turned into a $54.3 billion deficit.

Wow. I think Sophia can even do that math: 21 + 54 = $75 billion swing due to Wuhan flu. Amazing.

This has to be very, very concerning, what the governor said about that: "I just hope people are preparing themselves -- for the effort that we all need to engage together to undertake to unwind that and get back on our feet."

Newsome on property taxes, state income taxes, user fees: re-calculating, re-calculating, re-calculating.

Link here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-gov-newsom-lets-more-businesses-reopen-amid-coronavirus-after-revealing-staggering-budget-deficit. But the story is everywhere. Here is another link.

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Rush Limbaugh

I am not listening to the news any more. I watch TCM, listen to classical music while granddaughter-Uber driving, and very selectively surf the net. I had not tuned into Rush Limbaugh for several weeks until two days ago. [I had tuned in earlier but there was a run of shows when he had a guest host; I never, never, never listen to his guest hosts.]

Anyway, yesterday, I listened to Rush Limbaugh for one hour, the second day in a row. I bike for one to two hours between 11:00 a.m and 2: 00 p.m. when Rush is on live in our local area, so I listen to his first hour or his last hour.

But this caught my attention: 43 million listeners. He holds the record for radio talk show listeners. I can't put 43 million listeners into perspective because I don't know numbers for other radio talk shows. I will have to see if I can find that. But cable television news -- don't they run into 500,000-to-3 million-viewer range? Something like that, I think.

But then get this: the average amount of time a listener spends listening to Rush Limbaugh's show: 2 hours, 28 minutes. For heaven's sake: the show is only 2 hours, 28 minutes long; the other 32 minutes is taken up with ads and local news breaks.

Maybe he was joking; he has a great sense of humor.

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Biggest Disillusionment All Week

Rigzone is a very, very good source of daily crude oil news. They seem to be quite selective in their stories and quite good in their own analyses.

Today, however, I see they have linked a story from CNBC about $100 oil in 18 months. I saw that story yesterday -- from another site -- click bait.

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Break Dancing

I do have to send a huge shout-out to Google: I had never thought of looking up the origin of the term "break dancing." Now I know -- thanks to Google. I assume I was the only one who did not know. I will have to ask our two old granddaughters and their mom if they knew the origin of the phrase.